Living with Digital Surveillance in China 9781000967043, 9781032517742, 9781032517704, 9781003403876

Table of contents :
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of figures and tables
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Digital surveillance in China
Analytical lens and methods
Epistemic positioning
Core arguments
Structure of the book
Part I Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems
1 Privacy and surveillance
Privacy
Surveillance
Surveillance on a continuum between care and control
Perceptions of privacy and surveillance
2 Surveillance in China: from Dang’an and Hukou to the social credit systems
Personal and household registers
Social governance in the 21st century
Bottom-up and top-down approaches: grid management and the golden shield
The social credit systems
Current status of data centralisation and algorithmic sorting in China
Part II Anguishing narratives of moral shortcomings
3 Rules and monitoring will raise people’s ‘moral quality’
The rhetoric of rules and punishment in Chinese society
Rules and punishment as tools for moral progress
The civilising power of technology-enforced rules
4 National humiliations and the civilisation dream
Saving China’s national face: the dialectics of pride and shame
The dreams
5 Saving face: privacy as hiding shameful information
Privacy imaginaries
What do you hide? Privacy as the saving of face and social respectability
Who do you hide from? Parents and supervisors, not the government
Part III Redeeming narratives of digital protection
6 The government as protection and order
China is not an ordinary country: it is the Middle Kingdom
Government as parental protection: surveillance as care
Democracy: ‘the government is by the people’
7 Technology as a magic bullet
Convenience in every aspect of life
Love of technology
The moral function of technology
Technology will give China its due place in the world
The darker side of technology: opacity
Part IV The mental and emotional weight of surveillance
8 Mental tactics to dissociate oneself from surveillance
Brushing surveillance aside: minimising, ignoring, normalising, and reframing surveillance
Othering surveillance targets
Wearing blinders: ‘so far, it has not harmed me’
Resorting to fatalism: ‘It does not matter’
9 Misgivings and objections
Awareness and unpleasant feelings
Behaviours to limit surveillance exposure
Marginal but elaborate objections to generalised surveillance
Generalised surveillance of everybody versus being singled out
Disconnect between narratives on surveillance and emotional reactions to it
10 Self-censorship
Interviewing at the margin of politics
Self-censorship in action
Conclusion
Implications for Chinese studies: how may the unstable equilibrium shift in the future?
Implications for surveillance studies in other contexts
Appendix: Methods
Recruitment of the interview research participants
Interview guide
Interpreters’ training
Diary of observation data
Research data analysis
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

‘Surveillance operated by the Chinese social credit system has attracted much criticism from Western countries but few trouble to discover how Chinese people themselves understand and respond to surveillance. Living with Digital Surveillance engages directly, through vivid interviews, with Chinese citizens in three cities, showing how their surveillance imaginaries display distinctive features. A sensitive and illuminating contribution to our understanding of both Chinese and surveillance studies’. Prof. David Lyon, Queen’s University, Canada ‘Living with Digital Surveillance in China is an essential resource for anyone interested in digital surveillance in China. It provides insightful analysis that will help students, scholars, and practitioners better understand how authorities in China use digital technologies for social governance and how Chinese citizens live with it. The book draws from multiple literatures and rich fieldwork to shed light on citizens’ attitudes, behaviour, and narratives regarding digital surveillance. It is an important reminder that surveillance practices must be analysed within a country’s historical, socioeconomic, and political context. This lively book is a must-read for the times we live in’. Prof. Genia Kostka, Institute for Chinese Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany ‘Surveillance has become ever more a fact of daily life in China, and a necessary object of study to understand the evolving ways in which the Communist Party of China governs society. However, lacking from view has been the way in which Chinese individuals see and engage with this surveillance state. In Living with Digital Surveillance in China, Ariane Ollier-Malaterre paints a rich and complex picture that will be of interest to China scholars and surveillance specialists in equal measure’. Prof. Rogier Creemers, Modern Chinese Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands ‘Amidst persistent misunderstandings of China’s social credit systems, Living with Digital Surveillance in China provides a much needed, empirically grounded, and innovative account of Chinese citizens’ narratives of technology and surveillance as well as their coping strategies. Ariane Ollier-Malaterre carefully documents how certain hegemonic ideas of techno-nationalism such as the identity narrative of national humiliation and technological solutionism are reproduced and negotiated in everyday life, shaping citizens’ surveillance imaginaries. This book will be a valuable read for those who are interested in critical approaches to surveillance studies that challenge Eurocentric epistemology and centre the agency and lived lives of communities beyond the West’. Prof. Chenchen Zhang, Durham University, UK

LIVING WITH DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE IN CHINA

Digital surveillance is a daily and all-encompassing reality of life in China. This book explores how Chinese citizens make sense of digital surveillance and live with it. It investigates their imaginaries about surveillance and privacy from within the Chinese socio-political system. Based on in-depth qualitative research interviews, detailed diary notes, and extensive documentation, Ariane Ollier-Malaterre attempts to ‘de-Westernise’ the internet and surveillance literature. She shows how the research participants weave a cohesive system of anguishing narratives on China’s moral shortcomings and redeeming narratives on the government and technology as civilising forces. Although many participants cast digital surveillance as indispensable in China, their misgivings, objections, and the mental tactics they employ to dissociate themselves from surveillance convey the mental and emotional weight associated with such surveillance exposure. The book is intended for academics and students in internet, surveillance, and Chinese studies, and those working on China in disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, social psychology, psychology, communication, computer sciences, contemporary history, and political sciences. The lay public interested in the implications of technology in daily life or in contemporary China will find it accessible as it synthesises the work of sinologists and offers many interview excerpts. Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, PhD, is Professor of Management and the Director of the International Network on Technology, Work and Family at the University of Quebec in Montreal (ESG-UQAM), Canada. She chairs the Technology, Work and Family research community of the Work and Family Researchers Network. Her research examines digital technologies and the boundaries between work and life across different national contexts. She has published over 70 peer-reviewed chapters and articles in top-tier management, sociology, psychology, and information systems outlets (e.g. Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Human Relations, Annual Review of Sociology, Journal of Applied Psyschology, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Computers in Human Behavior).

Routledge Studies in Surveillance Kirstie Ball, William Webster, Charles Raab, Pete Fussey Kirstie Ball is Professor in Management at University of St Andrews, UK William Webster is Professor of Public Policy and Management at the University of Stirling, UK Charles Raab is Professorial Fellow in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, UK Pete Fussey is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at University of Essex, UK

Surveillance is one of the fundamental sociotechnical processes underpinning the administration, governance and management of the modern world. It shapes how the world is experienced and enacted. The much-hyped growth in computing power and data analytics in public and private life, successive scandals concerning privacy breaches, national security and human rights have vastly increased its popularity as a research topic. The centrality of personal data collection to notions of equality, political participation and the emergence of surveillant authoritarian and post-authoritarian capitalisms, among other things, ensure that its popularity will endure within the scholarly community. A collection of books focusing on surveillance studies, this series aims to help to overcome some of the disciplinary boundaries that surveillance scholars face by providing an informative and diverse range of books, with a variety of outputs that represent the breadth of discussions currently taking place. The series editors are directors of the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP). CRISP is an interdisciplinary research centre whose work focuses on the political, legal, economic and social dimensions of the surveillance society. Gender, Surveillance, and Literature in the Romantic Period 1780–1830 Lucy E. Thompson For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studiesin-Surveillance/book-series/RSSURV

LIVING WITH DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE IN CHINA Citizens’ Narratives on Technology, Privacy, and Governance

Ariane Ollier-Malaterre

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Ariane Ollier-Malaterre The right of Ariane Ollier-Malaterre to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ollier-Malaterre, Ariane, author. Title: Living with digital surveillance in China : citizens’ narratives on technology, privacy, and governance / Ariane Ollier-Malaterre. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. | Series: Routledge studies in surveillance | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023019389 (print) | LCCN 2023019390 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032517742 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032517704 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003403876 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Electronic surveillance—Social aspects—China. | Social control—China. Classification: LCC HV7936.T4 O54 2024 (print) | LCC HV7936.T4 (ebook) | DDC 363.2/320951—dc23/eng/20230706 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023019389 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023019390 ISBN: 978-1-032-51774-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-51770-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-40387-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876 Data availability statement for Living with Digital Surveillance in China: Due to the nature of this research, participants of this book did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available. Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To my family, to my friends, and to all who aspire to understand

CONTENTS

List of figures and tables xiii Acknowledgementsxiv List of abbreviations xvi Introduction Digital surveillance in China  1 Analytical lens and methods  3 Epistemic positioning  5 Core arguments  7 Structure of the book  8 PART I

1

Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

15

  1 Privacy and surveillance Privacy 17 Surveillance 21 Surveillance on a continuum between care and control  26 Perceptions of privacy and surveillance  28

17

x Contents

  2 Surveillance in China: from Dang’an and Hukou to the social credit systems Personal and household registers  40 Social governance in the 21st century  41 Bottom-up and top-down approaches: grid management and the golden shield  43 The social credit systems  45 Current status of data centralisation and algorithmic sorting in China  50 PART II

40

Anguishing narratives of moral shortcomings

59

  3 Rules and monitoring will raise people’s ‘moral quality’ The rhetoric of rules and punishment in Chinese society 63 Rules and punishment as tools for moral progress  72 The civilising power of technology-enforced rules  80

61

  4 National humiliations and the civilisation dream Saving China’s national face: the dialectics of pride and shame  85 The dreams  92

84

  5 Saving face: privacy as hiding shameful information Privacy imaginaries  104 What do you hide? Privacy as the saving of face and social respectability  111 Who do you hide from? Parents and supervisors, not the government  118 PART III

103

Redeeming narratives of digital protection

125

  6 The government as protection and order China is not an ordinary country: it is the Middle Kingdom 130

127

Contents  xi

Government as parental protection: surveillance as care  135 Democracy: ‘the government is by the people’  146   7 Technology as a magic bullet Convenience in every aspect of life  153 Love of technology  157 The moral function of technology  161 Technology will give China its due place in the world  166 The darker side of technology: opacity  169 PART IV

152

The mental and emotional weight of surveillance

177

  8 Mental tactics to dissociate oneself from surveillance Brushing surveillance aside: minimising, ignoring, normalising, and reframing surveillance  180 Othering surveillance targets  194 Wearing blinders: ‘so far, it has not harmed me’  203 Resorting to fatalism: ‘It does not matter’  207

179

  9 Misgivings and objections Awareness and unpleasant feelings  214 Behaviours to limit surveillance exposure  227 Marginal but elaborate objections to generalised surveillance 229 Generalised surveillance of everybody versus being singled out  240 Disconnect between narratives on surveillance and emotional reactions to it  242

213

10 Self-censorship Interviewing at the margin of politics  247 Self-censorship in action  254

246

Conclusion Implications for Chinese studies: how may the unstable equilibrium shift in the future?  267 Implications for surveillance studies in other contexts  271

267

xii Contents

Appendix: Methods 275 Recruitment of the interview research participants  275 Interview guide  277 Interpreters’ training  281 Diary of observation data  282 Research data analysis  283 Bibliography287 Index303

FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures I.1 Living with digital surveillance in China: intra-individual tensions9 3.1 Word cloud on rules and punishment, as rendered by NVivo 12 63 4.1 Word cloud on China and the civilisation dream, as rendered by NVivo 12 93 5.1 Word cloud on privacy, as rendered by NVivo 12 119 6.1 Word cloud on the government, as rendered by NVivo 12 138 7.1 Word cloud on technology, as rendered by NVivo 12 162 8.1 Mental tactics of dissociation from surveillance 180 Tables A.1 Breakdown of the 58 research participants A.2 Language in which the interviews were conducted A.3 Formality and duration of the interviews

277 282 282

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has been an adventure in many ways. I am very grateful to the professors who have invited me to China, the doctoral students who have been gracious interpreters, and the many persons who have contributed to this research by sharing their insights in formal and informal interviews. I have been thinking of every one of you very often these past years, and I hope this book does justice to your thoughts and feelings. I also want to express my appreciation for the hard work of the sinologists, privacy and surveillance scholars, and scholars in other disciplines, whose research and translations have nurtured my thinking and have informed the book deeply. Warm thanks to my family and friends who have believed in this book and have supported me throughout excitements and doubts. You have installed WeChat on your phones to chat with me when I  was travelling in China, listened patiently to my accounts of encounters and observations, gifted me books on China, watched Chinese movies with me, joked about how I kept bringing up China in just every conversation these past four years, and never stopped asking when you would be able to read the book. I hope you will find it accessible and will enjoy the stories it attempts to tell. I want to thank my students too, who have shown enthusiasm for the project and have patiently let me digress to China whenever I could. Dear colleagues of the Work and Family Researchers Network, the Academy of Management, and the Association of Internet Researchers, thank you for helping me build relationships with Chinese scholars. Dear members of the International Network on Technology, Work and Family, you have been awesome companions ever since I have begun exploring how we live with digital technologies. I gratefully acknowledge funding by the Social

Acknowledgements  xv

Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the ESG School of ­Management of the University of Quebec in Montreal. Dear colleagues of the University of Quebec in Montreal, thank you for your support and trusting that I would put a sabbatical leave to good use; Alexandre Méthé, you are a superb librarian. Ilham Lferde, Sabrina Pellerin, and Charles-Etienne Lavoie, thank you for your exceptional research assistance and positive energy. Yang Jing, thank you for teaching me Mandarin and becoming a friend: you see, older students can make it too! Nathalie Pan, of Circuits Chine, thank you for recommending Silk Roads itineraries; your diligence has made a dream come true. Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes and Corvis Catsouphes, you have been my first readers and your uplifting words have been just wonderful. Mila Lazarova and Emmanuelle Léon, thank you for your kind and insightful reviews of the book proposal; Gary Powell, Jeffrey Greenhaus, Ellen Kossek, Stephen Sweet, Nilanjan Raghunath, and Christine Beckman, thank you for your precious advice as I navigated the new territory of monograph publication. I am grateful to the reviewers of previous versions of the manuscript as their comments have considerably strengthened the book, and to Jean-François Billeter for an enlightening correspondence. Emily Briggs and Lakshita Joshi, and series editors Kirstie Ball, William Webster, Charles Raab, and Pete Fussey, thank you for your enthusiastic support. David Lyon, Genia Kostka, Rogier Creemers, and Chenchen Zhang, I am most grateful for your generous endorsements.

ABBREVIATIONS

AI CCTV CPC GDPR HR IT NDRC PIPL QR VPN

Artificial Intelligence Closed-Circuit TeleVision Communist Party of China General Data Protection Regulation Human Resources Information Technology National Development and Reform Commission Personal Information Protection Law Quick Response Virtual Private Network

INTRODUCTION

Digital surveillance in China

In many parts of the worlds, citizens are subjected to surveillance when they conduct internet searches, write emails, post on social media, make electronic payments, or go by facial recognition cameras (i.e. cameras that can identify a person by matching a picture or video of them against faces stored in a database). Public administrations operate background checks, collect data on citizens, and sort them into categories.1 Commercial companies rate their customers’ trustworthiness, openly or not.2 Mobile payment phone applications such as GooglePay, Apple Pay, and M-Pesa make transactions highly traceable. Surveillance studies have thus far mostly examined North American and European contexts. However, surveillance and citizens’ attitudes towards it are embedded in different historical, socio-economic, and political contexts. Therefore, researching other contexts such as the Chinese one, where surveillance has deep historical roots and draws on the most recent technological advances,3 is both important and timely. Several factors make China a fascinating setting in which to study surveillance. The state and other governmental bodies systematically collect data on citizens in partnerships with commercial companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi (known as ‘BATX’, with the same preponderance in China as Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon in other countries).4 Several factors explain the broad scope of data collection. First, the use of cash is fast disappearing. Nearly everything requires payment trough Alipay (Alibaba) or WeChat Pay (Tencent): people use these applications to pay for a bus ride, rent a bike, hail a taxi, split the cost of a restaurant meal, shop online, book train or show tickets, settle their taxes and utility bills, and DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-1

2 Introduction

much more.5 Second, social media platforms are the fabric of everyday life for personal, social, and work purposes – people look up the news on Weibo and entertain themselves on TikTok; they exchange countless text, audio, and video messages on WeChat daily; and WeChat is considered in many workplaces as easier and faster to use than email – the penetration of email in business communications is 30 per cent while that of WeChat is 90 per cent.6 Third, China has the highest ratio of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to citizens in the world – one for every 12 people7; it is also a leader in facial recognition cameras, with companies such as Hikvision, Megvii, or Sensetime exporting their technology.8 Fourth, advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and information systems architecture enable more efficient centralisation and analysis of these massive datasets, paving the way for scoring algorithms. Building on this technology and modelling American credit rating companies that derive people’s trustworthiness from normative behavioural standards,9 the 2014–2020 Chinese government plan sets the implementation of a social credit system as a central objective.10 The plan proposed to establish blacklists of organisations and individual citizens who violate the law and to attribute ‘social credit’ scores to citizens, based on their financial, social, and personal behaviours.11 The building of the social credit system has progressed steadily since 2014.12 While there is to date no unique social credit system or score per citizen, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital tracking and scoring of citizens.13 In sum, the scale of the data being collected from 940 million internet users,14 the fast pace of technological development, and China’s innovations in integrated social media applications, electronic commerce and payments, facial recognition, and artificial intelligence,15 truly warrant an examination of digital surveillance in this country. Importantly, all this occurs in a context of rapid economic and social change channelled by tight political control. In ways that contrast with Western liberal democracies, the goal of the Chinese government to control citizen’s behaviour is explicit, as the Chinese studies professor Rogier Creemers explains: The Chinese government does not see the need to control the conduct of its citizens through surreptitious or invisible means. Social control techniques prevalent in Western liberal democracies, such as gamification [the use of game-like incentives, such as points or badges, in non-game context] or nudging, are supposed to be largely unnoticeable: individuals are steered through the exploitation of inherent biases and unconscious decisionmaking strategies. The SCS [social credit system] on the other hand does not hide its paternalism under a bushel: it is part of an openly declared and widely propagated effort to instill civic virtue, and conjoined with propaganda campaigns to raise individuals’ consciousness about their actions.16

Introduction  3

This book is based on qualitative in-depth interviews and observations conducted in China, as well as extensive documentation of the academic and the grey literature. In a country where a large proportion of the population supports some degree of surveillance,17 the book examines how the Chinese citizens participating in this research perceive digital surveillance and how they live with it. Specifically, it analyses their ‘surveillance imaginaries’, a term coined by surveillance studies pioneer David Lyon, that is their mental images of surveillance and how they respond to it.18 Moreover, it examines the emotional repercussions of such a proximity to ubiquitous and ‘in-use’ data streams in the background of their everyday life, whether they notice it acutely or not.19 This book explores key research questions at the intersection of surveillance, privacy, internet, and Chinese studies: how do Chinese citizens view digital surveillance and its daily implications, as they scan their faces to enter buildings and public areas, search on the web, make bookings, pay, or check social media? How do their national and local historical, socio-economic, and political contexts shape their surveillance imaginaries and affect towards surveillance? What do they know and notice about the social credit systems and other components of the Chinese ‘surveillance assemblage’20? To what extent do they anticipate digital surveillance and change their behaviours because of it? While this book focuses on China, its implications are much broader. Pondering how the Chinese citizens participating in this research view digital surveillance and live with it can help to reflect on citizens’ attitudes, behaviours, and narratives regarding digital surveillance in other socio-economic, cultural, and political contexts such as the Western liberal democracies and countries of the Global South. In addition, the social credit system may well export itself outside of China: as part of the Belt and Road initiative, China’s government has proposed to establish a transnational credit system securing international trade and economic relations across 65 other countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe.21 Analytical lens and methods A polycontextual research

My background is in sociology, social media and internet studies, and crossnational research. I chose polycontextualisation as the analytical lens underpinning this book. The central tenet of polycontextualisation is that reaching a ‘holistic and valid understanding of any phenomenon’ in a country requires accounting for multiple layers of the country’s national context.22 First, polycontextualisation can be understood as the extension of a longstanding epistemic tradition in cross-cultural and monocultural research that

4 Introduction

of societal analysis.23 Societal analysis examines its objects in light of the unique societal effect resulting from interrelations between different systems in a country.24 The layers comprising a country’s national context may be physical (e.g. geography, climate), historical (e.g. sovereignty, traumas), cultural (e.g. beliefs and values), social (e.g. education system, family structure, religion), political (e.g. political system, legal system), and economic (e.g. economic system, industrial relations systems, technology).25 A direct implication of the polycontextual approach is the reliance on a multidisciplinary examination of a country’s national context, drawing on sociology, psychology, anthropology, history, political science, economics, industrial relations, and additional disciplines depending on the phenomenon being investigated. This book will therefore relate the analysis of interview narratives to China’s history, economic development, and socio-political environment. Second, polycontextualisation implies supplementing conventional research methods, such as surveys or interviews, with non-linear thinking that pays attention to non-verbal cues such as verbal cues or changes in voice intonations, to what happens in the background of the research setting, and to emotions. Polycontextual research calls for ‘thinking emotionally’, meaning ‘to attempt to cognitively understand a phenomenon by focusing on reactions that are, again not narrative in nature, but emotional’.26 This book will therefore analyse not only participants’ discourse but also their non-verbal reactions and emotions, leveraging the contextual knowledge that I  have accumulated during my travels in China. A polycontextual lens does not mean that this book can only shed light on the Chinese context. On the contrary, shedding light on the embeddedness of research participants’ narratives on digital surveillance in different layers of context is a call to conduct similar reflexive and polycontextual thinking on citizens’ attitudes towards digital surveillance in other country contexts. Conducting fieldwork in China as a foreigner

The project started with a 2-year preparation phase in which I started to learn Mandarin, read on Chinese history, and approached Chinese colleagues. I was born and raised in France and have lived in Canada since 2012. The Chinese colleagues viewed my foreigner identity in contrasted ways. One of them warned me that the interviews questions, asked by a foreigner, could be seen as political and that participants might see me as a potential ‘spy’. She thought that I should frame my research as a cross-cultural comparison and reach out for formal collaborations with Chinese scholars. She also thought that participants would be on their guard, explaining: ‘people may think you are prejudiced, and you have come here to judge’. Another colleague gave me a similar piece of advice: People won’t discuss these matters, or they won’t give genuine answers, or they will report you. You need to ask what people are proud of, what’s

Introduction  5

interesting in WeChat, in good ways, what the Chinese system has improved compared to Canada. By contrast, another Chinese colleague argued that people may trust a foreign interviewer more than a Chinese one. He believed that people in China were generally eager to talk with foreigners and were mostly careful because the government is nervous about foreigners. He suggested that people would likely say more to me than to a Chinese interviewer because I was unlikely to be an ‘agent provocateur’; that is, a person who tries to make people agree with dissent and then reports them: They may think a Chinese interviewer is even more a spy than a Westerner! They may be more open to foreigners, because that is exciting. You may be the first and the last foreigner to listen to them! I was eventually invited by three university professors to give research talks and collect data during my sabbatical leave. My institution’s review board granted ethical approval to conduct research with human subjects after requesting that I delete the participants’ names and contact details once the interviews had been conducted, as well as the emails, WeChat messages, and other traces. I conducted 58 research interviews in 2019 in Chengdu, Shanghai, and Beijing, and kept a diary of daily observations during the time I spent at these universities as well as on the individual trip I took in the Western provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinhai, Xinjiang, and Sichuan. My hosts’ graduate students served as interpreters and reassurance for the participants that the interview was being conducted for an academic purpose. The methodological Appendix details the recruitment of the participants, the breakdown of the sample, the data collection and analysis methods, and the strengths and limitations of this research. Epistemic positioning

As the international relations professor Zhen Wang explains in his book, Never Forget National Humiliation. Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations, the disciplines of international relations and political science have developed within the framework of Euro-American intellectual traditions. This leaves everyone guessing about China’s future because of a ‘lack of understanding about the inner world of Chinese people’,27 particularly their motivations and intentions. Wang calls for the study of Chinese indigenous attitudes, resources, and motivations to help bridge the gap in understanding between the West and China. This is the path I am trying to follow: this book attempts to ‘de-Westernise’ the internet and surveillance literature by analysing research participants’ mindsets from within the Chinese

6 Introduction

socio-political system. It focuses on participants’ surveillance imaginaries while putting my own views on surveillance at a distance. In turn, the polycontextualisation of China invites readers to a critical examination of the contexts that shape Western and other surveillance imaginaries. Giving a non-judgemental account is a laudable objective, yet several traps lurk on this road, such as eurocentrism, cultural relativism, and ‘going native’. First, Western media and scholarly literature on surveillance in China have been criticised as painting a dark picture of China while idealising Western liberal democracies in an imperialist manner.28 Roughly put, Western media tend to present the Chinese internet as unfree and the Western internet as free, without critically examining surveillance in their own societies. In addition, Chinese scholars are increasingly challenging Western ‘techno-orientalist’ narratives that offer a negative portrait of China through scary stories and sometimes fictitious accounts of what happens there, particularly regarding the social credit system.29 They have argued that in some cases, these accounts reflect the authors’ latent racism, or their instrumentalisation of China to produce a convenient ‘other’ in domestic debates.30 Therefore, any book on surveillance in China by a Western writer risks being received as ideological by Chinese readers. To distance myself from my own French and Canadian culture and from polarised views of China versus ‘the West’, I adopted the posture of the qualitative inductive researcher and delayed reading sinologists’ research on contemporary China until after I had conducted fieldwork. In line with the polycontextual lens, I coded the interview transcripts based on what the participants had said rather than pre-established categories stemming from academic readings31 and refrained from personal evaluations. Second, cultural relativism is an insidious trap, as the Chinese government is precisely using the claim that democratic values, as currently defined by the West, are not universal, to reject evaluations of its actions under the prism of human rights. As sinologist Jean-François Billeter clearly exposed in his latest essay,32 the Xi Jinping era stepped up the discourse on the singularity and self-contained nature of the Chinese civilisation, which the government purports to defend against Western values framed as corrosive and hypocritical. This ‘great narrative’33 is inherently paradoxical: at the same time that it claims particularism, the Communist Party of China (CPC) actively promotes the universal and central contributions of the Chinese civilisation to the world and a new international order in which democracy and human rights are redefined in line with its interests.34 Importantly, while I analyse Chinese citizens’ narratives in their particular historical and socio-political context, I do not condone systematic surveillance in China or other countries and do not intend to minimise the severe impacts of digital surveillance for citizens in China, especially those who continue to uphold democratic values. The book, therefore, embeds critical scholarship from Western as well as Chinese scholars.

Introduction  7

Third, it was also necessary to keep a critical distance to China and not ‘go native’, that is, embrace the perspectives of the participants without retaining an analytical mind. As I spent time in China and developed relationships with colleagues, I  became aware of feelings of loyalty towards them that could well have created other biases and led me to censor my writing to avoid creating trouble for them, disappointing them, and having my work met with the classic riposte: ‘you don’t understand China’. To recreate some distance after I came back, I immersed myself in sinologists’ work35 and fiction by Chinese novelists in exile, kept abreast of Chinese intellectuals’ thinking, thanks to David Ownby’s ‘Reading the China Dream’ translations and analyses,36 listened to Cindy Yu’s ‘Chinese whispers’ podcasts,37 followed Jeff Ding’s ChinAI newsletter,38 and attended conference workshops on contemporary China. Core arguments

While the interview questions were focused on the digital artefacts and underlying infrastructures of surveillance such as social media, cameras, electronic payments, and the social credit system, the participants kept diverging from these practical matters to bring up morality, social judgement, rules, and punishment. Their perception that China needed to make progress to revive its ancient place in the world as a central civilisation was also very vividly expressed. Moreover, participants’ words when they discussed the government and technology were strikingly affective and symbolic. Successive rounds of data analysis and extensive further readings in the field of Chinese studies led me to identify several core narratives of their surveillance imaginaries; note that the value of narratives does not lie in representing an ‘objective’ reality but instead in capturing how people portray and account for the social world as they experience it. Three related narratives of moral shortcomings produced shame and anguish among the participants: (a) the lack of ‘moral quality’ in China which makes rules and punishment necessary, (b) the century of humiliations by foreign powers and the imperative to revive the ancient Chinese civilisation, and (c) a pejorative view of privacy as a suspicious desire to hide shameful behaviours. With the help of visual representations of the patterns in different interviews, I  came to discern that participants’ positive narratives on the government as protector and on technology as a magic bullet to all of China’s problems were responding to the anguishing narratives of moral shortcomings: they were redeeming narratives. Thus, a cohesive system of narratives was formed that set the stage for digital surveillance to be cast as a viable tool to enforce rules and propel China on a trajectory of ‘moral quality’, safety, strength, and international recognition – the ‘Chinese Dream’.

8 Introduction

Despite these rendering of these narratives, however, almost all participants engaged in mental tactics to deny or minimise their personal exposure to digital surveillance and its associated risks: they attempted to convince themselves they were not the direct targets of surveillance or to discard consequences of their exposure. Moreover, about half of the participants expressed misgivings and unpleasant emotions about surveillance, especially the idea of being singled out as a target of surveillance. A certain degree of self-censorship and orthodoxy was also manifest in the interviews. These analyses led me to formulate the core arguments of this book: (1) A  cohesive system of anguishing versus redeeming narratives (moral shortcomings in China versus government and technology offering digital protection) creates a setting where digital surveillance is cast by most participants as an indispensable solution in China. (2) However, surveillance weighs on citizens: most participants elaborated mental tactics to dissociate themselves from surveillance and about half of them expressed misgivings and objections to surveillance. (3) There is great tension between the discursive framing of surveillance as indispensable in China and the mental and emotional weight that participants bear as they cope with surveillance. In other words, the participants’ imaginaries of digital surveillance are characterised by an underlying paradox: ‘surveillance is good for China; however, I  don’t like it and I  am trying to forget about it’. This paradox intersects but also extends and nuances the tension identified among Western citizens who support surveillance directed at others but not surveillance directed at them.39 As illustrated in Figure I.1, this tension created palpable psychological discomfort for many participants. It also implies an unstable equilibrium which could rapidly shift towards increased rejection of surveillance, as the December 2022 protests against the COVID-19 lockdowns have shown. Structure of the book

Part I offers two introductory chapters that define privacy and surveillance, summarise existing research, and discuss the Chinese context. Chapter  1 introduces readers to conceptions of privacy in China and the West, surveillance at the interpersonal, commercial, and state levels, and how citizens in China and the West perceive privacy and surveillance. Chapter 2 traces the long history of surveillance in China and explains the state’s philosophy of ‘social governance’ and how surveillance operates through bottom-up grid management and top-down database centralisation. It then analyses how different ‘social credit’ systems in construction score citizens based on their

Introduction  9

FIGURE I.1 Living

with digital surveillance in China: intra-individual tensions

financial, social, and personal behaviours to reward and punish them, up to the evolutions of digital surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic. Part II analyses the three related narratives of moral shortcomings that produce shame and anguish among the participants. Chapter  3 explores the ‘moral quality’ narrative as a source of support for digital surveillance. Many participants emphasised the importance of rules and punishment and lamented the lack of ‘moral quality’ of their fellow citizens. Framing surveillance as rule enforcement, they implied that people should be treated as children and punishment was needed for their education and moral progress. Their main concern was not that they were being monitored or the existence of blacklists; it was the opacity and fluctuating application of rules and punishment, which undermined their control over how to stay out of trouble. Chapter 4 analyses the multifaceted narratives regarding China and the West. On the one hand, participants evoked the century of humiliations and continued fears of being attacked. On the other hand, they expressed pride in China’s achievements and hopes in a promised trajectory to restore the country. They longed for the recognition of China as a modern civilised country and viewed economic development and public safety as constituting moral progress. Chapter 5 delves into the moral roots of perceptions of privacy. The participants primarily understood privacy as the concealment of shameful information to save face and maintain respectability (yīnsī) as opposed to personal thoughts or information you do not wish to disclose in public (yǐnsī). This morally tainted view of privacy made wanting privacy suspicious. Moreover, most participants did not identify corporations or the government as threatening their privacy; instead, they were concerned about social groups whose judgement they avoided (e.g. parents and supervisors). Part III focuses on the redeeming narratives that are meant to assuage the moral shortcomings narratives: the protective parental figure of the

10 Introduction

government and the cutting-edge Chinese technology. Chapter  6 unpacks the different rationales underlying the participants’ support for the government. The first states that China is unique because of its history, culture, and size and that the one-party system is therefore the only way to counter chaos in China and avoid reliving the shame of past humiliations. The second is a view of the government as a trusted protector, almost a parent, which is needed when ‘moral quality’ is lacking. The third is that the government is democratic in the Chinese sense, that is, it originates in the people and the people have a voice. Chapter 7 discusses how participants expected technology to improve people’s ‘moral quality’ by forcing them to follow the rules and to cure China by uprooting secrecy and hidden behaviours. It illustrates the strong affective words, such as ‘love’, with which the participants talked about technology and claimed ‘technology will solve all of China’s problems’. It shows how this discourse on technology as propelling China on its quest to revive its previous glory responds to the three underlying narratives of moral shortcomings. Viewing digital surveillance as indispensable does not mean that participants lived well with it. Part IV turns to how participants coped with their exposure to surveillance. Chapter 8 classifies the mental tactics that almost nine out of ten participants used to dissociate themselves from the risks attached to surveillance. It identifies four main self-protective rationales: (1) brushing surveillance aside with the rationale ‘there is no risk associated with surveillance’, (2) othering surveillance targets with the rationale ‘I am a small potato/a good person’, (3) wearing blinders based on the rationale that ‘so far it has not harmed me’, and (4) resorting to fatalism with the rationale ‘it does not matter because I can only accept it’. In addition to engaging in these tactics, almost half of the participants expressed misgivings and objections to surveillance. Chapter 9 analyses their apprehension, their behaviours to limit exposure, and the principled objections voiced by a small fraction of participants. It discusses how participants mostly accepted generalised surveillance applying to everyone but strongly rejected being singled out by that surveillance. Lastly, it points out a disconnect between their discourse on the value of surveillance, which reflected the cohesive system of narratives discussed in parts II and III of the book, and their emotional rejection of it (e.g. dislike, resentment, worries, frustration, fear, anger); the misgivings arose when participants pondered how they felt about surveillance more than when they thought of surveillance. Chapter 10 discusses self-censorship, orthodoxy, and the ethical challenges of interviewing in a country where many topics are considered political, such that the researcher and the participant sometimes ‘dance’ around political speak and propaganda. The conclusion highlights the contributions of this book to the understanding of digital surveillance in contemporary China. First, this book identifies the tension between participants’ narratives on surveillance as indispensable and the mental and emotional weight that living with surveillance bears on

Introduction  11

them. Second, this book qualifies these narratives underlying digital surveillance in China as systemic, polycontextual, and deeply moral. These takeaways have important implications for Chinese studies as well as surveillance studies in other country contexts. Notes 1 Arne Hintz, Lina Dencik, and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Digital Citizenship in a Datafied Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018); Shoshana Zuboff, “Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization,” Journal of Information Technology 30, no. 1 (2015); Kirstie Ball, “Exposure: Exploring the Subject of Surveillance,” Information, Communication & Society 12, no. 5 (2009); Mikkel Flyverbom, Ronald Deibert, and Dirk Matten, “The Governance of Digital Technology, Big Data, and the Internet: New Roles and Responsibilities for Business,” Business & Society 58, no. 1 (2019). 2 Frank Pasquale, The Black Box Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015). 3 Min Jiang, “A Brief Prehistory of China’s Social Credit System,” Communication and the Public 5, no. 3–4 (2020). 4 Rogier Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control,” Anthropology & Archaeology Research Network Research (2018): 1–32; Genia Kostka and Lukas Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship,” Policy & Internet 12, no. 3 (2019); Fan Liang, Vishnupriya Das, Nadiya Kostyuk, and Muzammil M. Hussain, “Constructing a Data-Driven Society: China’s Social Credit System as a State Surveillance Infrastructure,” Policy & Internet 10, no. 4 (2018). 5 Yu-Jie Chen, Zhifei Mao, and Jack Linchuan Qiu, Super-Sticky WeChat and Chinese Society (Bingley: Emerald, 2018). 6 Ibid. 7 Iman Ghosh, “Mapping the State of Facial Recognition Around the World,” May 22, 2020, www.visualcapitalist.com/facial-recognition-world-map/. 8 Jeff Ding, “ChinAI #143: 2021 AI Company Ranking,” https://chinai.substack. com/p/chinai-143-2021-ai-company-rankings. 9 Saif Shahin and Pei Zheng, “Big Data and the Illusion of Choice: Comparing the Evolution of India’s Aadhaar and China’s Social Credit System as Technosocial Discourses,” Social Science Computer Review 38, no. 1 (2020). 10 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 11 This document is translated on Rogier Creemers’ website, https://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/state-council-guiding-opinions-concern ing-establishing-and-perfecting-incentives-for-promise-keeping-and-joint-pun ishment-systems-for-trust-breaking-and-accelerating-the-construction-of-socialsincer/. 12 Marcella Siqueira Cassiano, “China’s Hukou Platform: Windows into the Family,” Surveillance  & Society 17, no. 1–2 (2019); Liang et  al., “Constructing a Data-Driven Society.” 13 Chuncheng Liu and Ross Graham, “Making Sense of Algorithms: Relational Perception of Contact Tracing and Risk Assessment During Covid-19,” Big Data & Society 8, no. 1 (2021). 14 China Internet Network Information Center, “The 46th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China,” 2021, https://www.cnnic.com.cn. 15 Yongxi Chen and Anne S. Y. Cheung, “The Transparent Self Under Big Data Profiling: Privacy and Chinese Legislation on the Social Credit System,” Journal of Comparative Law 12, no. 2 (2017). 16 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System,” 27.

12 Introduction

17 Genia Kostka, “China’s Social Credit Systems and Public Opinion: Explaining High Levels of Approval,” New Media & Society 21, no. 7 (2019); Chuncheng Liu, “Who Supports Expanding Surveillance? Exploring Public Opinion of Chinese Social Credit Systems,” International Sociology 37, no. 3 (2022); Mo Chen and Jens Grossklags, “Social Control in the Digital Transformation of Society: A Case Study of the Chinese Social Credit System,” Social Sciences no. 11 (2022); Marc Oliver Rieger, Mei Wang, and Mareike Ohlberg, “What Do Young Chinese Think about Social Credit? It’s Complicated,” MERICS Report, 2020, https:// merics.org/en/report/what-do-young-chinese-think-about-social-credit-its-com plicated; Zheng Su, Xu Xu, and Xun Cao, “What Explains Popular Support for Government Monitoring in China?” Journal of Information Technology & Politics 19, no. 4 (2022). 18 David Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance: Watching as a Way of Life (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018), 42. 19 Kirstie Ball, MariaLaura Di Domenico, and Daniel Nunan, “Big Data Surveillance and the Body-Subject,” Body & Society 22, no. 2 (2016). 20 Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson, “The Surveillant Assemblage,” The British Journal of Sociology 51, no. 4 (2000). 21 Liang et al., “Constructing a Data-Driven Society.” 22 Anne S. Tsui, Sushil S. Nifadkar, and Amy Y. Ou, “Cross-National, Cross-Cultural Organizational Behavior Research: Advances, Gaps, and Recommendations,” Journal of Management 33 (2007); Debra L. Shapiro, Mary Ann Von Glinow, and Zhixing Xiao, “Toward Polycontextually Sensitive Research Methods,” Management  & Organization Review 3, no. 1 (2007); Ariane Ollier-Malaterre and Annie Foucreault, “Cross-National Work-Life Research: Cultural and Structural Impacts for Individuals and Organizations,” Journal of Management 43, no. 1 (2017). 23 Marc Maurice, “Convergence and/or Societal Effect for the Europe of the Future?” in Work and Employment in Europe: A  New Convergence?, ed. Peter Cressey and Bryn Jones (London and New York: Routledge 1995), 137–58; Marc Maurice and François Sellier, “Societal Analysis of Industrial Relations: A Comparison Between France and West Germany,” British Journal of Industrial Relations 17, no. 3 (1979); Marc Maurice, Francois Sellier, and Jean-Jacques Silvestre, The Social Foundations of Industrial Power (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986). 24 Birgit Pfau-Effinger, “Changing Welfare States and Labour Markets in the Context of European Gender Arrangements,” in Changing Labour Markets, Welfare Policies and Citizenship, ed. Jørgen Goul Andersen and Per H. Jensen (Bristol: Policy Press, Scholarship Online, 2012). 25 Tsui, Nifadkar, and Ou, “Cross-National, Cross-Cultural Organizational Behavior Research.” 26 Shapiro et al., “Toward Polycontextually Sensitive Research Methods,” 144. 27 Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), xii. 28 Christian Fuchs, “Baidu, Weibo and Renren: The Global Political Economy of Social Media in China,” Asian Journal of Communication 26, no. 1 (2016). 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Shapiro et al., “Toward Polycontextually Sensitive Research Methods.” 32 Jean-François Billeter, Pourquoi l’Europe. Réflexions d’un sinologue (Paris: Éditions Allia, 2020). 33 Victor Louzon, Le grand récit chinois. L’invention d’un destin mondial (Paris: Taillandier, 2023).

Introduction  13

34 Gerlinde Groitl, “China’s Dream: Constructive Revisionism for Great Rejuvenation,” in Russia, China and the Revisionist Assault on the Western Liberal International Order (Cham: Palgrave Studies in International Relations, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), 371–427, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18659-2_9. 35 Jean-François Billeter, Contre François Jullien (Paris: Éditions Allia, 2017); JeanFrançois Billeter, Chine trois fois muette, essai sur l’histoire contemporaine et la Chine (Paris: Éditions Allia, 2016); Jean-François Billeter, “La civilisation Chinoise,” in Histoire des mœurs, ed. Jean Poirier (Paris: Folio Histoire Gallimard, 1991); Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Demain la Chine: Démocratie ou Dictature? (Paris: Le Débat, Gallimard, 2018); Anne Cheng, Penser en Chine (Paris: Folio Histoire Gallimard, 2021); Danielle Elisseeff, Histoire de la Chine: Les racines du présent (Monaco: Les éditions du Rocher, 2003); Jean-Louis Rocca, La société chinoise vue par ses sociologues (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2008); Alain Wang, Les Chinois (Paris: Tallandier, 2018); Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation. 36 David Ownby, www.readingthechinadream.com/about.html. 37 Cindy Yu, www.spectator.co.uk/podcasts/chinese-whispers. 38 Jeff Ding, ChinAI Newsletter, https://chinai.substack.com/. 39 Graham Sewell, Surveillance: A Key Idea for Business and Society (London and New York: Routledge, 2021).

PART I

Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

1 PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE

Let me first introduce how privacy is defined in China and point out the differing connotations in language between the Chinese and English words. The public and the private domains of life have been discussed as early as in the Warring States period (475–221 bce) in China.1 However, Chinese and Western scholars note that there is no Chinese-specific equivalent to the Western conceptions of privacy grounded in the primacy of individual autonomy and intimacy,2 because the Confucianist and Taoist philosophies are based on different premises. Therefore, the Western conceptions were imported in China in the late Qing period (1840–1912), and current Chinese scholarship on privacy and surveillance mostly uses Western frameworks, despite differences in socio-economic and political contexts.3 For this reason, I review these constructs based on both Chinese and Western scholarship. Privacy Privacy in Chinese scholarship

Privacy can be written in two different ways in Mandarin. One term is yīnsī (a shameful secret you need to hide 阴私), and the other is yǐnsī (secrets, personal things you do not wish to disclose in public, 隐私),4 which is closer to the Western meaning of privacy. In the first term, yīn (阴) designates a range of notions including the negative principle in the yin-yang duality, the shade, and female genitalia. In the second term, yǐn (隐) has the more neutral meaning of hide, conceal, although meanings in Mandarin depend on the context in the sentence. In both, sī (私) means private, confidential5 and may also have a derogatory connotation,6 by contrast with gong (public), a term DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-3

18  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

associated with moral qualities.7 Confusion persists between the two meanings of privacy in Mandarin. For instance, even an authoritative law dictionary defines both terms as ‘cases of which the contents offend public decency’ and cites rape, sexual relations with minors, sodomy, and prostitution as examples of private matters.8 The Analects of Confucius discusses the public and the private domains of life as early as the Warring States period before the unification of China.9 However, the Chinese conceptions of privacy have different philosophical roots than the Western ones and tend to subordinate the personal realm to the public realm.10 Confucianism puts an emphasis on family relationships, in the service of finding one’s rightful place within a natural social hierarchy rather than in the pursuit of intimacy.11 Early Confucianism viewed the private realm (si) as residual in relation to the public realm (gong), not unlike ancient Greece and Rome.12 Taoism does encourage inwardness and concealment, as the Tao itself is said to be hidden. However, early Taoism did not conceive of family life or friendship as self-contained parts of life essential to personal growth; rather than achieving individual uniqueness, the goal was to go beyond oneself.13 While both Confucianism and Taoism value self-cultivation, they do not consider that the value of self-cultivation lies in individuals gaining freedom from social norms and developing distinctive values and beliefs.14 The late Qing period saw the private realm gain legitimacy in some aspects; it, however, remained associated with selfishness, while the public realm was infused with public-mindedness.15 In fact, some argue that ‘the importation of Western privacy laws has prevented China from developing its own sui generis privacy legal culture’.16 This importation began in the late Qing period17; however, communal living and collectivised property in the communist People’s Republic of China obscured discussions on privacy as a protection against the intrusion of the state and the community.18 Civil law scholars took a renewed interest to privacy alongside Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the 1990s.19 A milestone was a 1997 book edited by Wang Limin and Yang Lixin titled The Law of the Rights of The Person that proposed the definition of privacy adopted by the Civil Code in 2002, as a ‘right enjoyed by a natural person, under which the person is free from publicity and any interference by others with personal matters’.20 However, legal cases have more often been based on the right to reputation or the right to portrait than on the right to privacy.21 This may change with recent regulations: the Civil Code’s revision in 2020 defines privacy as ‘the tranquillity of natural private persons’ lives, and private and confidential (simi) spaces, activities and information that they do not wish others to know about’.22 Within Chinese academia, social science scholars have primarily focused on consumer privacy, and there is little research on privacy as it relates to surveillance.23

Privacy and surveillance  19

Privacy in Western scholarship

In Western societies, Hannah Arendt traced discussions on privacy back to ancient Greece.24 However, it wasn’t until the 18th and 19th industrial revolutions that the distinction between the public and the private spheres gained importance and modern private life emerged, around families whose bodily and affective activities became subtracted from public sight.25 Philosophy professor Ferdinand Schoeman associates the rising significance of privacy and intimacy with that of the nuclear family and of the state, which reduced individuals’ dependence on kin groups.26 An early definition of privacy as ‘the right to be let alone’ was proposed in 1890.27 Westin’s classic definition from 1967 is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to decide what information about themselves to communicate to others and when and how to do so.28 Simply put, privacy pertains to ‘what people conceal and reveal and what others acquire and ignore’.29 Nowadays, the lines between the public and private spheres have become increasingly blurred30 and information systems scholars think of privacy in a finer-grained way. The seminal work of Helen Nissenbaum31 argues that people think contextually rather than in dichotomic public versus private terms. In other words, privacy expectations depend on norms of appropriateness, on the relationships at play, and the goals of the information sharing – for instance, the information a person may share on a dating application is different from what they disclose on a workplace social network. Privacy is threatened when technologies violate contextual integrity, that is, a person’s expectations about where their information will flow, for instance, when their information is shared or aggregated beyond the initial context. Privacy has long been cast as an individual concern to be balanced with common good objectives such as security (detecting and preventing terrorist threats) or public health (fighting off a pandemic). In this view, which is not very different from the Chinese pejorative focus on privacy as hiding shameful behaviours, privacy tends to be framed as a person’s selfish and morally dubious interest, weighing less than collective objectives.32 However, the trade-off between privacy and security has been criticised by prominent privacy scholars on the grounds that privacy is interdependent, collective, and a common good as well. To begin, privacy in interdependent insofar as it is ‘networked’33: as social media scholars Alice Marwick and danah boyd frame it, privacy is a collaboration with others within a social context. We cannot fully control what is known about us, because others in our networks may also disclose information about us,34 and social media or e-commerce platforms may share our information with other users or third parties. Therefore, even individuals who carefully control what they disclose can be affected by the actions of others. For example, when a friend hands over their phone at an international

20  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

border, the photos and emails that we have sent to that person, as well as our social media interactions, can be accessed by border agents and stored for later use.35 ‘Group privacy’ is another useful construct. First, individuals construct their identities in relation to social groups, forming social identities at the intersection of gender, race, social class, and other affiliations36; second, algorithmic sorting is also aimed at groups.37 Anuj Puri’s doctoral research argues that group privacy starts with individuals’ right to form their social identities without being prejudiced by algorithmic manipulations of the information presented to them on social media. It continues with the group’s right to be protected against algorithmic sorting and therefore the right of the individual not to be identified with certain groups.38 Along these lines, several scholars have established the social value of privacy as a common good. Daniel Solove famously rebutted the ‘I’ve got nothing to hide’ argument according to which only those engaging in unlawful activities should be concerned with privacy. A comment he quotes will help readers grasp what is at stake: ‘If you have nothing to hide, then that quite literally means you are willing to let me photograph you naked? And I get full rights to that photograph – so I can show it to your neighbors?’.39 Building on John Dewey’s work, Solove notes that individuals are not separate from society and that privacy serves to maintain social order as much as to protect individuals from social control.40 Priscilla Regan also contests the simplistic dichotomy opposing the individual and the society, pointing out that the greatest threats to privacy in modern society stem from techniques used by private and governmental organisations, rather than individuals.41 She argues that large social and economic organisations are distinct from society as a whole and common good suffers when such organisations, who hold power on individuals, undermine their privacy: for instance, individuals have little or no latitude to provide personal information to tax agencies or to have their medical records sent to insurance companies for payment. Drawing on philosophy, political science, and economy, Regan frames privacy as holding a common, collective, and public value: common in that people all have an interest in privacy even if they differ in what they view as private, collective in that like clean air, it is difficult for anyone to have privacy unless everyone has a minimum level of privacy, and public because without privacy, individuals cannot exercise their individuality and civil rights, such that the public sphere becomes shallow and democracy is undermined.42 Public policy should therefore protect privacy, which requires an elucidation of the various collectives that need protection from social groups that hold power over them: what Charles Raab terms opening the black box of ‘society’.43 Indeed, privacy serves many functions in interpersonal relationships and in society, which sociologists Denise Anthony and her colleagues synthesise clearly.44 First, as social psychologist Irwin Altman established, privacy is

Privacy and surveillance  21

instrumental in regulating interpersonal boundaries and optimizing the amount and type of disclosures about oneself.45 For instance, sharing personal information with a new friend means that we trust the friend enough to make ourselves vulnerable to them: our disclosures may build a closer relationship with that person. However, sharing too much information or the wrong type of information, or sharing it too quickly, may damage the relationship. Second, keeping information within a social group increases the group’s cohesion and sets boundaries towards members of the out-group: for instance, when teenagers share information with their peers but hide it from their families, they signal their affiliation to their peer group and keep out their families.46 Privacy norms generally imply limiting strangers’ access to one’s information, as well as refraining from accessing strangers’ information.47 In other words, privacy has an important socialisation function.48 Third, the ability to choose what to conceal and what to reveal, and to whom, allows us to present ourselves to different social groups in ways that are socially accepted. We each belong to different social groups that may have distinct social norms and we navigate these affiliations all day long. Sociologist Erving Goffman pointed out that we present ourselves according to appropriateness norms in different private and public contexts. In his words, we wear different masks on the front versus back stages to perform credible shows on both and be accepted by others.49 This performance implies we adapt our behaviours to the audience; for instance, we may dress, speak, and behave differently in a formal work setting than at a casual dinner with friends. Self-presentation may sometimes imply some degree of misrepresentation, such as when we conceal actions that are inconsistent with the audience’s standards, or when we exaggerate a trait or behaviour to meet expectations. However, people also need validation of the ways in which they see themselves and may therefore choose to behave authentically even if doing so does not enhance their image.50 Lastly, privacy serves the controversial function of enabling the powerful in society to maintain their status and legitimacy. For instance, governments keep some information secret from citizens and similarly, employers conceal certain types of information from employees. More generally, people are not equal with regard to privacy: children have less privacy than parents, sick persons have less privacy than healthy ones, and poor persons have less privacy than rich ones.51 Surveillance

Surveillance has been a persistent fact of life in human societies, and famous thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and Robert Owen discussed it already in the 18th and beginning of 19th centuries.52 The contemporary field of surveillance

22  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

studies emerged in the 1980s after the publication of seminal work by Michel Foucault and James Rule and accelerated after the 9/11 attacks of 2001.53 Surveillance, a term that derives from the Latin ‘super’ (meaning ‘over’) and ‘vigilantia’ (meaning ‘watchfulness’), implies watching over someone, usually to bring about or prevent behaviours.54 Parents watch over children, supervisors watch over employees, and police officers watch over people in public spaces.55 Although the act of surveillance most often assumes a power differential between those who surveil and those who are surveilled, peers can also watch each other, for instance, in work teams or on social media (lateral surveillance56 or social surveillance57) and workers can watch bosses (sousveillance58). Physical surveillance is an age-old phenomenon: if prisons59 and workplaces60 have been extensively studied, streets and public spaces, schools, apartment buildings, neighbourhoods, cities, and many other physical settings are also monitored.61 In recent decades, the growing digitalisation of everyday life brought about ‘dataveillance’ that can be conducted remotely and in continuous real-time.62 As such, David Lyon defines surveillance as ‘the collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data have been garnered’.63 As it explicit from this definition, surveillance ensures conformity to social norms, rules, and commercial interests, and is in tension with individual freedoms and privacy because it achieves this effect by controlling and influencing individual behaviour. In other words, surveillance carries with it value systems and normativities on how one should live one’s life.64 What is being harvested are the digital traces we leave when our mobile phone shares geolocation data, when we search the web, shop online, post on social media, pay electronically for a bus or taxi fare, wear a fitness tracker, fill our ‘smart home’ with sensors, or walk down a street that is equipped with facial recognition cameras. Some of these traces are data (such as when a customer fills in an online form with their name, address, and payment details) and some are metadata (such as the routing information contained in the headers of emails or text messages, or geolocation information hidden in a digital photograph).65 These traces can be collected, stored, shared, and harvested by online operators, data brokers, intelligence agencies, and public administrations.66 Taken together, these multiple actors and processes form ‘surveillance assemblages’,67 which are far more layered than the simplistic idea of a ‘Big Brother’ watching us or the centralised panopticon imagined by Jeremy Bentham. In many cases, there is no personalised connection between the watcher and the watched, making surveillance ‘liquid’ as exposed by David Lyon.68 As noted by Kirstie Ball, the co-director and founder of the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy, and her colleagues, the absence of a direct gaze and of a direct relationship between watchers

Privacy and surveillance  23

and watched does not preclude embodied proximity to surveillance, as ‘the surveilled subject is now much more closely but sometimes unknowingly enmeshed in surveillance assemblages and subject to multiple lines of sight’.69 Indeed, our everyday activities and interactions with friends, families, coworkers, and other members of our social networks trigger data streams that flow to corporations, governmental agencies, and other bodies.70 Before I detail the historical roots of surveillance in China in Chapter 2, I wish to familiarise the readers with the implications of surveillance. I focus on reciprocal surveillance emanating from other individuals and groups, commercial surveillance emanating from corporations, and state surveillance emanating from governments, as these forms apply to everyone. Reciprocal surveillance

A reciprocal surveillance culture has developed with the advent of social media in the late 1990s, as many people have a visible presence on the internet, either because they post or comment on social media, write a personal blog, and post videos on YouTube, or because pictures and videos of them are uploaded by others. A discourse equating sharing with caring has emerged which deprecates shy, reserved, or guarded attitudes. As the media and digital society professor José Van Dijck noted a decade ago, the default approach for social media users is transparency, even though the underlying algorithms remain hidden.71 Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook (Meta), advocates authenticity and real-name policies; he views having different identities on social media as a lack of integrity.72 This rhetoric on authenticity and transparency is clearly illustrated in Dave Eggers’ book The Circle, where a young Mae Holland ends up wearing a camera strapped to her body and happily shares her entire life with her fans.73 While transparency has been heralded as a way to combat the secrecy under which the powerful maintain their privilege,74 this rhetoric obscures the social control and information asymmetry characteristic of social media.75 In addition, transparency can backfire: my own research showed that openly sharing everything with everyone on social media, where one is ‘friends’ with people from different social worlds, such as family and friends, coworkers, bosses, and clients, can backfire in the workplace and even ruin careers.76 Transparency on social media may also divide families and friendships; sometimes it is better not to know much about other people’s lifestyle, values, and political opinions. Commercial surveillance

As early as 1993, Oscar Gandy, a scholar of the political economy of information, analysed the ways in which corporations capture the surplus value of

24  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

our non-productive labour, that is the personal data we generate every time we search the internet, click on a link, watch a video, buy a product, order food online, or rate a movie.77 Big Data and algorithms enable commercial companies to collect, sell, and mine these data to create individual behavioural profiles, or virtual data doubles, that can be used, among others, in targeted advertising, credit management, insurance, or recommender systems (e.g. on retail and entertainment platforms). Increasingly, public–private partnerships extend this ‘panoptic sort’ to citizens as they access welfare and social services.78 Big Data profiling and predictions rely on the increasing sophistication of algorithms: with an accumulation of 300 ‘likes’, Facebook can predict the personality traits of their users more accurately than their close kin can. The algorithm needs just ten ‘likes’ to make a better prediction than a coworker, 70 to out-perform a roommate, 150 to out-perform a parent or sibling, and 300 to out-perform a spouse.79 Algorithms can also identify key events in a person’s life, such as when they get pregnant or divorced, and help companies advertise to targeted customers according to these events. Different pricing for the same products and services can also be fine-tuned according to market-based segmentations; for instance, different internet users may view different prices depending on their location, the browser they use, or the speed of their connection.80 Such profiling is a major source of profits and a driver of what sociologist Shoshana Zuboff termed ‘surveillance capitalism’.81 State surveillance

States also profile citizens in the domains of education, children’s services, social welfare, health, crime, and immigration. Data can be collected offline and online, directly by governments or indirectly via third parties. The Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology found that the United States federal, state, and local law enforcement use facial recognition to run searches in their databases of drivers’ licence and ID photos in at least 26 states, covering 117 million people.82 Some cities have developed extensive surveillance programmes based on facial recognition; for instance, the Project Greenlight Detroit launched in 2016 centralises camera feeds into the police Real Time Crime Center. These cameras are installed in public spaces as well as in late-night businesses, addiction treatment clinics, reproductive health and family planning clinics, churches, schools, apartment buildings, and hotels.83 Other United States cities, however, have banned the use of facial recognition. Another example of data collection by governments is the datamining by the Department of Homeland Security of the social media profiles of 15 million travellers per year, when agents vet visa applications that include the applicants’ social media handles.84 One illustration of the way that states may collect data through corporations is that of Australian

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communication service providers, which are mandated to log 2  years of their customers’ location data and online activities.85 Governments may also access the data collected by private companies in opaque ways. As shown by the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the United States National Security Agency can read emails, monitor phone calls and online chats, track web browsing and browsing histories, monitor social media activity and contact networks, and even follow the screens of individual computers.86 Artificial intelligence and datafication, that is, the fact that everything people do leaves data traces that can be stored and used,87 open up the possibility of a governance grounded in the profiling, sorting, and categorising of populations, based on their consumption habits, political preferences, or the likelihood of their breaking the law.88 The Data Justice Lab at Cardiff University conducted case studies of citizen scoring in the United Kingdom in welfare programmes as well as in predictive policing. For instance, the Avon and Somerset Police are partners with private analytics companies such as Qlik Sense to integrate public service databases and compute individual ‘offender risk’ and ‘vulnerability’ scores. The city of Bristol uses algorithmic profiling to manage welfare programmes. The Camden Resident Index provides a ‘single view of the citizen’, fed by 16 different municipal databases, which facilitates the detection of illegal subletting or fraud in school admission and parking permit applications. Some United Kingdom cities also use geo-demographic segmentation tools that were originally meant for marketing purposes, such as Mosaic by the consumer credit agency Experian. This tool categorises citizens according to their demographic information such as age and gender as well as the neighbourhood where they live (examples of group classifications in Mosaic are ‘aspiring homemakers’, ‘families with needs’, and ‘dependent greys’89). Such integrated profiling forms the basis of a ‘digital citizenship’ that determines the level of public and private services that we receive, or the ease with which we may cross borders; sometimes we are not even aware that our digital profile has opened or closed doors for us.90 State surveillance is a worldwide reality, although to differing degrees and in different socio-political contexts. European intelligence agencies also profile their citizens.91 Estonia’s e-government infrastructure has set up a national database and online ID cards that aim to promote ‘trust’ and prevent undesirable citizen behaviours.92 Moreover, Global South scholars are increasingly researching the rise of surveillance outside Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) countries. Examples include India, which is developing a social credit system called Aadhaar that aims at curbing corruption in the transfer of welfare benefits,93 and many African countries that digitalize the identification of citizens, as in Ghana where the provision of public services and benefits is subsumed to a person’s Ghana card with a SIM card and a digital address registered to it.94

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Surveillance on a continuum between care and control

Surveillance technologies may be used with different objectives and outcomes. On the one hand, surveillance technologies can enhance people’s health, living conditions, and safety. A  vast body of literature documents the many advantages of technology for individuals and societies when they are used to their benefits (see, for instance, the work of sociologist Deborah Lupton on fitness trackers such as Apple watches or Fitbits that enable people to monitor their own health and that of their elders).95 Location data transmitted by mobile phones have assisted governments in determining the effectiveness of COVID-19 lockdowns or the potential for contamination in several countries, including China and Vietnam.96 Likewise, the government of Togo has enrolled the expertise of a Berkeley professor, Joshua Blumenstock, to identify citizens most in need of financial support due to the pandemic. The system determines who is eligible to receive aid, based on satellite images analysing roads, house roofs, and access to water, and on cell phone data indicating individuals’ international calls and the ratio of initiated versus received calls.97 On the other hand, surveillance technologies can be leveraged by corporations and governments to channel, control, and mold consumers and citizens. Privacy risks are one of the most obvious implications of surveillance. In a recent book, the labour history and privacy law professor Lawrence Cappello explains the perils of recording everything, giving the example of casual private interactions: People take more care in their writing than they do with their impromptu speech and actions. Casual speech often includes offhand comments, partial observations, sarcasm, and false sentiments, to avoid an argument, for instance. To have such conversations made public is potentially catastrophic to privacy.98 He also argues that anyone who is watched for long enough may be caught in some form of illegal or immoral activity that can be used against them. When a person discloses information such as their name, gender, date of birth, address, and sometimes even more sensitive information such as their social security number, to access services on the web, this information may be transferred for secondary use without that person giving their consent (e.g. a platform sells their data), and it can be improperly accessed and used by unauthorised persons (e.g. for unwanted solicitations or identity theft).99 Even anonymized datasets are no guarantee of privacy. In a recent study, scholars reverse engineered an American ‘anonymized’ dataset and were able to re-identify correctly 99.98 per cent of the people in the dataset.100 The dataset had just 15 variables, such as date of birth and gender, per individual. As Luc Roger, the first author of the study, said in an interview:

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While there might be a lot of people who are in their thirties, male, and living in New York City, far fewer of them were also born on 5 January, are driving a red sports car, and live with two kids (both girls) and one dog.101 While many people appreciate the convenience of the internet in daily life, including the helpfulness of targeted recommendations, concerns have been voiced over leakages of the personal data entrusted to large corporations such as Meta or PayPal. Users often do not explicitly consent to the surreptitious gathering of their personal data.102 Moreover, problematic practices to which users have not given their consent, such as the possible recording of home conversations by devices such as Alexa and Siri, or the use of cookies and invisible web beacons by online advertising companies, exist.103 Other concerns pertain to errors and discrimination. Numerous facial recognition and algorithmic decision-making errors have been documented. For instance, facial recognition does not work equally well for all; a MIT thesis found that three common facial-analysis systems showed an error rate of 34.7 per cent for dark-skinned women compared with 0.8 per cent for lightskinned men.104 Researchers who worked with the London Police reported that the matches using live facial recognition between people in public spaces and people on watchlists were correct only 19 per cent of the time over the period 2016–2019.105 They were also concerned with the lack of clarity on criteria to place individuals on watchlists. Another example is the Australian Robodebt debacle in 2016–2017, when automated decision-making software erroneously flagged thousands of social security recipients as having received higher benefits than they were entitled to.106 Moreover, profiling may rely on stereotyping social groups deemed at risk of committing a crime or being a victim of a crime. It may, therefore, increase social discrimination and digital inequality.107 Such discrimination can be imperceptible, when decisions are made because of small indicators in vast datasets. For instance, some algorithms record the browser that job applicants use and favour applicants who use a newer kind of browser because there is a correlation (not a causality!) between using a newer browser and spending more time working.108 Thus, job applicants with older browsers may be passed over for a job interview without even realising why. Carissa Veliz, a privacy scholar at Oxford University, gives another example in her book Privacy is Power: a young woman may go online to buy a book on getting pregnant and be discriminated against in a job interview a couple months later, without ever making the connection between the digital trace she left when ordering the book and the decision not to offer her the job.109 The imbalance in power between individuals, corporations, and governments is particularly problematic in authoritarian regimes because surveillance can be used as a political control and repression tool, as is currently the case in several Chinese provinces including Xinjiang.110 The imbalance

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could be mitigated, to some extent, by increasing transparency and accountability so that citizens understand how data are being collected, stored, disseminated, and mined, and have effective means to consent or withdraw from the process, and to redress errors arising from it.111 However, it took decades for privacy rights to emerge in Europe and North America. While the European Union created a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that applies to all European and non-European corporations interacting with European Union residents, privacy legislation in most countries lags behind corporate practices.112 To date, the United States still does not have a unified legal framework that may be able to deal with the current datafication of society.113 The much-awaited Chinese Personal Information Protection Law (2021) compares with the GDPR in many aspects, providing strong protection in principle114; however, its implementation is largely left to corporations’ discretion.115 Moreover, several loopholes in the law may exempt state agencies from notifying citizens of data collection and obtaining their consent when they may evoke state secrecy (article 19) or when doing so would impede their ability to fulfil their duties and responsibilities (article 35).116 In line with the instrumental and teleological legal environment in China, the law does not institute a fundamental right and subordinates privacy to the rule of the Communist Party of China.117 Perceptions of privacy and surveillance People care about privacy

While people are generally aware that data collection and data mining exist, most lack a specific understanding of how this works. Many individuals develop a ‘surveillance imaginary’, which is a mental image of surveillance and of adequate ways to cope with it.118 In the United Kingdom and the United States, about 80 per cent of people report that they care about their privacy, with younger people and women being more concerned than older people and men.119 United Kingdom surveys indicate that most people know that they leave traces when they search the internet, visit websites, and buy online (68, 68, and 70 per cent, respectively); far fewer know that data about their internet connection and protocol (38 per cent) and information other people share about them (17 per cent) are also collected.120 In addition, people tend to worry more about privacy violations by family members, friends, and employers than by corporations and governments.121 A  review of United Kingdom and United States studies indicates that the entities people are most likely to trust are healthcare institutions, followed by banks and local governments; they are much less likely to trust retailers, and even less so marketing organisations and social media companies.122 However, qualitative studies note ambivalence as consumers resent the intrusion

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by targeted advertisements yet find it pleasant to be ‘recognised’ by such targeting and appreciate real-time recommendations when they are relevant.123 Additional factors affecting the public acceptance of surveillance are the perceived need for surveillance,124 trust in the government,125 and perceived benevolence, competence and integrity of the agency operating the surveillance.126 For instance, a 2019 United Kingdom survey found that 71 per cent of people supported police use of face recognition in public spaces to reduce crime. However, support for other uses was lower: 70 per cent believed face recognition should not be used in schools, only 22 per cent believed it should be allowed on public transportation, and only 7 per cent approved its use in supermarkets to track shopper behaviour.127 Privacy apathy or chilling effects?

We may take many steps to protect our data: for instance, change our passwords often, paste tape on phone and computer cameras, use a VPN to surf the internet (a Virtual Private Network disguises one’s identity and encrypts internet traffic), switch to providers who promise greater privacy, such as ProtonMail and duckduckgo.com, or abstain from using cloud storage or universal logins (e.g. Google and Facebook). We can also try to outsmart data collection organisations by committing ‘privacy lies’: half of United States teenagers have provided false information on social media profiles and 40 per cent of internet users report they have lied to commercial websites.128 However, many of those who are concerned about their privacy do not take these steps, which has been termed the ‘privacy paradox’.129 Some scholars believe this paradox stems from privacy apathy130 or cynicism.131 Others argue that it is not indifference, but resignation: in response to the normalisation of surveillance practices in everyday life, people feel they have no choice but to live with it; ‘digital resignation’ is a rational response to the lack of control.132 Still other scholars challenge these views and argue that when people are aware of the digital traces they leave and start thinking about their potential consequences, they become wary of what they say and do. This is called the ‘chilling effect’ and can result in self-censorship, self-restraint, and silence.133 People anticipate what the consequences of their behaviours may be and behave more carefully when there is no certain way to assess what will be considered controversial or disruptive, and what the legal and extralegal consequences may be. For instance, a person may refrain from posting a comment on a news article online, or they may modify their behaviour at a party in anticipation of their picture being posted online.134 An early case of such ‘anticipatory obedience’135 to norms and expectations was observed in studies on web searches: immediately following Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations that the United States National Security Agency was screening web searches for specific suspicious keywords such as ‘bomb’, Wikipedia articles

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related to terrorism and other topics containing these keywords were much less often read.136 Indeed, people avoid seeking out information when they know they are being monitored, even if the mere act of reading an article does not constitute a crime.137 A set of cross-national studies in 21 and 63 countries concluded that, perhaps as a result of these chilling effects, censorship is more detrimental to democratisation in countries where state surveillance is high.138 Therefore, law professor Paul Bernal contends that data collection and surveillance by corporations and states impact not only on individual privacy but also on freedom of speech, assembly, and association.139 In China, awareness and advocacy for privacy are growing

Privacy is a fundamental right in the Chinese Constitution140 and is protected by law in public trials and judgements.141 Several voices, including those from governmental bodies, have expressed concern about privacy risks related to commercial and state surveillance. In response to public demands for protection against abuse and the misappropriation of user data by companies, four government agencies launched a privacy policy audit of ten internet service companies, including WeChat and Alipay, in 2017.142 The 2017 Cyber Security Law included privacy rules, which have been refined in the 2018 Personal Information Security Specification.143 In 2019, several companies were blacklisted for excessive collection of personal data without user consent. The government then announced that the business licenses of companies that did not comply with privacy regulations could be revoked.144 Reflecting these concerns, the 2021 Personal Information Protection Law curtails companies’ ability to collect and handle personal information. The law applies to state agencies as well, addressing citizens’ concern in the wake of pandemic data collection. As we saw already, the laws’ provisions leave ample discretion to corporations and state agencies, such that its application remains to be tested.145 Studies on privacy literacy and attitudes in China are still rare, and they are difficult to conduct as the wording of questions is scrutinised by university officials and survey sample service providers, who by law must screen out illegal content including questions viewed as inciting anti-government sentiment.146 A 2019 survey on a small sample of university students found that their privacy literacy regarding online platforms was low and that there was no significant correlation between students’ privacy concerns and their intention to disclose personal information.147 A 2020 survey among Chinese university students in five large cities found that these students, who are among the heaviest internet users, had extremely poor knowledge about platform privacy policies. The surveyed students were more concerned about privacy on commercial platforms than government surveillance. The results regarding the privacy paradox were mixed. On the one hand, those who were most

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concerned about commercial and state surveillance were accordingly less willing to disclose personal information on social media and online service platforms. However, they did not use social media nor online service platforms less than those who were less concerned. Interestingly, students who answered a paper-and-pencil survey expressed higher concerns about state surveillance and lower beliefs in the necessity of government surveillance than those who provided their answers online, suggesting that respondents who anticipate scrutiny of their online answers may engage in self-censorship.148 Chinese citizens approve of digital surveillance more so than Western citizens

The high approval rates for surveillance technology in several academic surveys on large Chinese samples have surprised many observers. A  study based on a 2018 nationally representative survey found that 82 per cent of respondents supported CCTV surveillance and 60 per cent supported email and internet surveillance.149 Over 80 per cent of the 2,000 respondents of a 2019 survey either somewhat approved or strongly approved the commercial social credit systems.150 Across several surveys, approval for the social credit system is higher among respondents who are more educated, earn a higher income, and have an urban residence (hukou).151 Moreover, approval for the social credit systems is higher in China than in other countries.152 So is approval for facial recognition use: in China, 43 per cent of the 2020 World Values Survey participants believed that the government should ‘definitely’ have the right to keep people under video surveillance in public areas, compared with 35 per cent in the United Kingdom, 26 per cent in Germany, and 23 per cent in the United States. A very low 9 per cent of Chinese respondents expressed opposition to facial recognition technology, compared with 22 per cent in the United Kingdom, 25 per cent in the United States, and 31 per cent in Germany.153 Likewise, willingness to share personal data through contact tracing applications in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic is also significantly higher in China than in the United States and Germany.154 However, the social credit systems have been under fire from academics and policy makers, including the original designers of the plan. The concerns are that a system initially built to restore trust in market economics and focus on illegal activities now encompasses uncivil and health behaviours, gradually becoming a ‘moral dossier’ (daode dang’an) by proxy, that is a record of a person’s moral integrity.155 Professor Lin Yu, of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, has argued that social credit should be computed narrowly in line with legal and contractual obligations rather than moral behaviour.156 Politics and international relations professor Chenchen Zhang notes that the People’s Bank of China itself has been sceptical of the use of social credit for purposes other than financial and economic.157 A pilot project that

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classified citizens into A to D categories in Suining was aborted.158 In 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Council instructed local officials that all black and red lists need to have a basis in central legal standards; those that did not meet this requirement would be ejected from the social credit system.159 The commercial pilots, too, have faced a backlash. The government shut down Tencent’s credit system the day it was launched in 2015. In 2018, Alipay introduced an annual reporting feature where users gave permission to access their Sesame Credit scores by default; following an outcry on social media, Alipay quickly apologised and removed that feature.160 Lastly, a 2022 qualitative study on a small sample of Beijing residents suggests that citizens may be ambivalent towards the social credit systems: while many respondents supported the punishments associated with the black lists, they also raised the issue of privacy as an important concern.161 *** In this chapter, I have aimed to familiarise readers with scholarship on privacy and surveillance. Since surveillance has a long history in China, it is also essential to trace its historical roots and explain the socio-economic and political goals that it serves. I will therefore focus the next chapter on how surveillance unfolds specifically in China. Notes 1 Chengyuan Shao, “The Surveillance Experience of Chinese University Students and the Value of Privacy in the Surveillance Society” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 2020), https://doi.org/10.17615/tr7a-yr90. 2 Cristina B. Whitman, “Privacy in Confucian and Taoist Thought,” in Individualism and Holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist Values, ed. Donald Munro (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1985), 85–100, https:// repository.law.umich.edu/book_chapters/21/. 3 Shao, “The Surveillance Experience of Chinese University Students and the Value of Privacy in the Surveillance Society.” 4 Jingchung Cao, “Protecting the Right to Privacy in China,” Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 25 (2005). 5 Pleco online Chinese dictionary. 6 Elaine Yuan, The Web of Meaning: The Internet in a Changing Chinese Society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021). 7 Peter Zarrow, “The Origins of Modern Chinese Concepts of Privacy: Notes on Social Structure and Moral Discourse,” in Chinese Concepts of Privacy (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002). 8 Cao, “Protecting the Right to Privacy in China.” 9 Shao, “The Surveillance Experience of Chinese University Students and the Value of Privacy in the Surveillance Society.” 10 Whitman, “Privacy in Confucian and Taoist Thought.”

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11 Ibid. 12 Zarrow, “The Origins of Modern Chinese Concepts of Privacy.” 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Tiffany Li, Jill Bronfman, and Zhou Zhou, “Saving Face: Unfolding the Screen of Chinese Privacy Law,” Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2826087. 17 Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson, eds., Chinese Concepts of Privacy (Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2022). 18 Li, Bronfman, and Zhou, “Saving Face: Unfolding the Screen of Chinese Privacy Law.” 19 Cao, “Protecting the Right to Privacy in China.” 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 National People’s Congress, “Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo minfadian [Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China],” 2020, cited in Rogier Creemers, “China’s Emerging Data Protection Framework,” Journal of Cybersecurity 8, no. 1 (2022). 23 Shao, “The Surveillance Experience of Chinese University Students and the Value of Privacy in the Surveillance Society.” 24 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958). 25 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). 26 Ferdinand D. Schoeman, Privacy and Social Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 27 Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, “The Right to Privacy,” Harvard Law Review 4, no. 5 (1890). 28 Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom (New York: Atheneum, 1967). 29 Denise Anthony, Celeste Campos-Castillo, and Christine Horne, “Toward a Sociology of Privacy,” Annual Review of Sociology 43 (2017). 30 Isabelle Berrebi-Hoffmann, Politiques de l’intime  – des utopies sociales d’hier aux mondes du travail d’aujourd’hui (Paris: La Découverte, 2009); Ariane OllierMalaterre, Jerry Jacobs, and Nancy P. Rothbard, “Technology, Work and Family: Digital Cultural Capital and Boundary Management,” Annual Review of Sociology 45 (2019). 31 Helen Nissenbaum, Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010); Helen Nissenbaum, “Privacy as Contextual Integrity,” Washington Law Review 79, no. 1 (2004). 32 Priscilla M. Regan, Legislating Privacy: Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). 33 Alice E. Marwick, and danah boyd, “Networked Privacy: How Teenagers Negotiate Context in Social Media,” New Media & Society 16, no. 7 (2014); Philip Fei Wu, Jessica Vitak, and Michael T. Zimmer, “A Contextual Approach to Information Privacy Research,” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 71, no. 4 (2020). 34 danah boyd, “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?” Knowledge Tree, no. 13 (2007), www.danah.org/papers/KnowledgeTree.pdf. 35 Faiza Patel, Rachel Levinson-Waldman, Sophia DenUyl, and Raya Koreh Patel, “Social Media Monitoring,” Brennan Center for Justice, 2019, www.brennan center.org/sites/default/files/2019-08/Report_Social_Media_Monitoring.pdf. 36 Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior,” in Psychology of Intergroup Relations (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1986).

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37 Linnet Taylor, Luciano Floridi, and Bart van der Sloot, “Introduction: A New Perspective on Privacy,” in Group Privacy: New Challenges of Data Technologies, tome 1 (Dordrecht: Springer Verlag, 2017). 38 Anuj Puri, “A  Theory of Group Privacy,” Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 30 (2021). 39 Daniel J. Solove, “I’ve Got Nothing to Hide and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy,” San Diego Law Review 44 (2007): 150. 40 Daniel J. Solove, Understanding Privacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 41 Regan, Legislating Privacy. 42 Ibid; Priscilla M. Regan, “Privacy as a Common Good,” Information, Communication and Society 5, no. 3 (2002). 43 Charles Raab, “Privacy, Social Values and the Public Interest’ in ‘Politik und die Regulierung von Information’,” in Politische Vierteljahresschrift, ed. Andreas Busch and Jeanette Hofmann, Sonderheft 46 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2012). 44 Anthony, Campos-Castillo, and Horne, “Toward a Sociology of Privacy.” 45 Irwin Altman, The Environment and Social Behavior: Privacy, Personal Space, Territory, Crowding (Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1975). 46 danah boyd, “Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics” (PhD diss., University of California, School of Information, 2008). 47 Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008). 48 Kirsty Hughes, “The Social Value of Privacy, the Value of Privacy to Society and Human Rights Discourse,” in Social Dimensions of Privacy, ed. Beate Roessler and Dorota Mokrosinska (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 49 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Harmondsworth, 1978). 50 William B. Swann Jr., “To Be Adored or to Be Known: The Interplay of SelfEnhancement and Self-Verification,” in Foundations of Social Behavior, ed. Richard. M. Sorrento and E. Torry Higgins, vol. 2 (New York: Guilford Press, 1990); William B. Swann Jr., Brett W. Pelham, and Douglas. S. Krull, “Agreeable Fancy or Disagreeable Truth? How People Reconcile Their Self-Enhancement and Self-Verification Needs,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, no. 5 (1989). 51 Anthony, Campos-Castillo, and Horne, “Toward a Sociology of Privacy.” 52 Graham Sewell, Surveillance: A Key Idea for Business and Society, 1st ed. (Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2021). 53 Kirstie Ball, Kevin Haggerty, and David Lyon, Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies (London: Routledge, 2012); David Lyon, “Reflections on Forty Years of ‘Surveillance Studies’,” Surveillance & Society 20, no. 4 (2022). 54 David L. Tomczak and Tara S. Behrend, “Electronic Surveillance and Privacy,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Technology and Employee Behavior, ed. Richard N. Landers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 55 Lawrence Cappello, None of Your Damn Business: Privacy in the United States from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019). 56 Mark Andrejevic, “The Work of Watching One Another: Lateral Surveillance, Risk, and Governance,” Surveillance & Society 2, no. 4 (2005). 57 Alice E. Marwick, “The Public Domain: Surveillance in Everyday Life,” Surveillance & Society 9, no. 4 (2012). 58 Steve Mann, Jason Nolan, and Barry Wellman, “Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments,” Surveillance & Society 1, no. 3 (2003).

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59 Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975). 60 Kirstie Ball, Electronic Monitoring and Surveillance in the Workplace: Literature Review and Policy Recommendations, no. JRC125716 (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2021), 104, https://data.europa.eu/ doi/10.2760/5137; Daniel Ravid, Jerod White, David Tomczak, Ahleah Miles, and Tara Behrend, “A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Electronic Performance Monitoring on Work Outcomes,” Personnel Psychology (2022), https://doi.org/10.1111/ peps.12514; Ifeoma Ajunwa, The Quantified Worker. Law and Technology in the Modern Workplace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023). 61 David Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance: Watching as a Way of Life (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). 62 Sara Degli Esposti, “When Big Data Meets Dataveillance: The Hidden Side of Analytics,” Surveillance & Society 12, no. 2 (2014); José Van Dijck, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 63 David Lyon, Surveillance and Society: Monitoring Everyday Life (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2001), 2. 64 Ball, Kirstie, MariaLaura Di Domenico, and Daniel Nunan, “Big Data Surveillance and the Body-Subject,” Body & Society 22, no. 2 (2016). 65 Mikkel Flyverbom, Ronald Deibert, and Dirk Matten, “The Governance of Digital Technology, Big Data, and the Internet: New Roles and Responsibilities for Business,” Business & Society 58, no. 1 (2019). 66 Arne Hintz, Lina Dencik, and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Digital Citizenship in a Datafied Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018); Kirsten Martin, “Data Aggregators, Consumer Data, and Responsibility Online: Who Is Tracking Consumers Online and Should They Stop?” The Information Society 32, no. 1 (2016). 67 Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson, “The Surveillant Assemblage,” The British Journal of Sociology 51, no. 4 (2000). 68 David Lyon, “Liquid Surveillance: The Contribution of Zygmunt Bauman to Surveillance Studies,” International Political Sociology 4 (2010). 69 Kirstie Ball, Di Domenico, and Nunan, “Big Data Surveillance and the BodySubject,” 65. 70 Ibid. 71 Van Dijck, The Culture of Connectivity. 72 David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011). 73 Dave Eggers, The Circle (New York: Vintage, 2014). 74 David Brin, The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? (Reading, MA: Perseus Press, 1998). 75 Sarah Myers West, “Data Capitalism: Redefining the Logics of Surveillance and Privacy,” Business & Society 58, no. 1 (2019). 76 Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Nancy P. Rothbard, and Justin M. Berg, “When Worlds Collide in Cyberspace: How Boundary Work in Online Social Networks Impacts Professional Relationships,” Academy of Management Review 38, no. 4 (2013). 77 Oscar H. Gandy Jr., The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). 78 Ibid. 79 Wu Youyou, Michal Kosinski, and David Stillwell, “Computer-Based Personality Judgments Are More Accurate Than Those Made by Humans,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 4 (2015). 80 Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius and Joost Poort, “Online Price Discrimination and EU Data Privacy Law,” Journal of Consumer Policy 40, no. 3 (2017).

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81 Shoshana Zuboff, “Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization,” Journal of Information Technology 30, no. 1 (2015). 82 Clare Garvie, The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America (Washington, DC: Georgetown Law, Center on Privacy & Technology, 2016). 83 Clare Garvie and Laura M. Moy, America Under Watch: Face Surveillance in the United States (Washington, DC: Georgetown Law, Center on Privacy & Technology, 2019). 84 Patel et al., “Social Media Monitoring.” 85 Nik Thompson, Tanya McGill, Anna Bunn, and Rukshan Alexander, “Cultural Factors and the Role of Privacy Concerns in Acceptance of Government Surveillance,” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 71, no. 9 (2020). 86 Christian Fuchs, “Baidu, Weibo and Renren: The Global Political Economy of Social Media in China,” Asian Journal of Communication 26, no. 1 (2016). 87 Arne Hintz, Lina Dencik, and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Digital Citizenship in a Datafied Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). 88 Cristina Alaimo and Jannis Kallinikos, “Computing the Everyday: Social Media as Data Platforms,” The Information Society 33, no. 4 (2017): 175–91. 89 Hintz, Dencik, and Wahl-Jorgensen, Digital Citizenship in a Datafied Society. 90 Arne Hintz, Lina Dencik, and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, “Digital Citizenship and Surveillance| Digital Citizenship and Surveillance Society – Introduction,” International Journal of Communication 11 (2017). 91 Ibid. 92 Nello Cristianini and Teresa Scantamburlo, “On Social Machines for Algorithmic Regulation,” AI & Society 35, no. 3 (2020). 93 Saif Shahin and Pei Zheng, “Big Data and the Illusion of: Comparing the Evolution of India’s Aadhaar and China’s Social Credit System as Technosocial Discourses,” Social Science Computer Review 38, no. 1 (2020). 94 Smith Oduro-Marfo, Presentation in the research seminar of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel Chair in Surveillance Studies, October 13, 2022. 95 Deborah Lupton, “ ‘Not the Real Me’: Social Imaginaries of Personal Data Profiling,” Cultural Sociology 15, no. 1 (2021). 96 Jonathan Tirone, Thomas Seal, and Natalia Drozdiak, “Location Data to Gauge Lockdowns Tests Europe’s Love of Privacy,” Bloomberg.com, March 18, 2020, www. bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/austria-italy-join-push-to-use-mobiledata-to-gauge-lockdown. 97 Anna Sylvestre-Treiner, “Au Togo, Le Revenu Universel, C’est Aussi Simple Qu’un Téléphone Portable,” Courrier International, April 13, 2021. 98 Cappello, None of Your Damn Business, 128. 99 Naresh K. Malhotra, Sung S. Kim, and James Agarwal, “Internet Users’ Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC): The Construct, the Scale, and a Causal Model,” Information Systems Research 15, no. 4 (2004). 100 Luc Rocher, Julien M Hendrickx, and Yves-Alexandre De Montjoye, “Estimating the Success of Re-Identifications in Incomplete Datasets Using Generative Models,” Nature Communications 10, no. 1 (2019). 101 Anonymising personal data ‘not enough to protect privacy’, shows UC Louvain’s new study, UC Louvain, August 8, 2019, https://uclouvain.be/en/discover/news/ anonymising-personal-data-not-enough-to-protect-privacy-shows-uclouvain-snew-study.html. 102 Alessandro Acquisti, Laura Brandimarte, and George Loewenstein, “Privacy and Human Behavior in the Age of Information,” Science 347, no. 6221 (2015). 103 West, “Data Capitalism.”

Privacy and surveillance  37

104 Joy Adowaa Buolamwini, “Gender Shades: Intersectional Phenotypic and Demographic Evaluation of Face Datasets and Gender Classifiers” (master’s thesis, MIT, 2017). 105 Pete Fussey and Daragh Murray, “Independent Report on the London Metropolitan Police Service’s Trial of Live Facial Recognition Technology,” in The Human Rights, Big Data And Technology Project (Colchester: Human Rights Centre. University of Essex, 2019). 106 Lupton, “ ‘Not the Real Me’.” 107 Marina Micheli, Christoph Lutz, and Moritz Büchi, “Digital Footprints: An Emerging Dimension of Digital Inequality,” Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 16, no. 3 (2018). 108 Sam Adler-Bell and Michelle Miller, “The Datafication of Employment,” Report on Surveillance and Privacy, The Century Foundation, 2018, https://tcf.org/content/report/datafication-employment-surveillance-capitalism-shaping-workersfutures-without-knowledge/. 109 Carissa Véliz, Privacy Is Power (London: Bantam Press, 2021). 110 James Leibold, “Surveillance in China’s Xinjiang Region: Ethnic Sorting, Coercion, and Inducement,” Journal of Contemporary China 29, no. 121 (2020); Geoffrey Cain, The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future (New York: Public Affairs, 2021); Josh Chin and Liza Lin, Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2022). 111 Hintz, Dencik, and Wahl-Jorgensen, Digital Citizenship in a Datafied Society; Solove, Understanding Privacy. 112 Frank Pasquale, The Black Box Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015). 113 Paul Bernal, What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Internet Privacy? (Newbury Park: Sage, 2020). 114 Nicola F. Daniel, “EU Data Governance: Preserving Global Privacy in the Age of Surveillance” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2022). 115 Yehan Huang and Mingli Shi, “Top Scholar Zhou Hanhua Illuminates 15+ Years of History Behind China’s Personal Information Protection Law,” Stanford DigiChina, 2021. 116 Daniel, “EU Data Governance”; Creemers, “China’s Emerging Data Protection Framework.” 117 Ibid; Huw Roberts, Josh Cowls, Jessica Morley, Mariarosaria  Taddeo, Vincent  Wang, and Luciano  Floridi, “The Chinese Approach to  Artificial Intelligence: An Analysis of Policy, Ethics, and Regulation,” AI & Society 36 (2021). 118 Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance. 119 Helen Kennedy, Susan Oman, Mark Taylor, Jo Bates, and Robin Steedman, “Public Understanding and Perceptions of Data Practices: A Review of Existing Research,” in Living with Data, ed. Helen Kennedy (Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 2020). 120 Ibid. 121 Michael Adorjan and Rosemary Ricciardelli, “A New Privacy Paradox? Youth Agentic Practices of Privacy Management Despite ‘Nothing to Hide’ Online,” Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 56, no. 1 (2019). 122 Kennedy et al., “Public Understanding.” 123 Mike Michael and Deborah Lupton, “ ‘Depends on Who’s Got the Data’: Public Understandings of Personal Digital Dataveillance,” Surveillance & Society 15, no. 2 (2017). 124 Ian Brown and Douwe Korff, “Terrorism and the Proportionality of Internet Surveillance,” European Journal of Criminology 6, no. 2 (2009).

38  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

125 Eva-Maria Trüdinger and Leonie C Steckermeier, “Trusting and Controlling? Political Trust, Information and Acceptance of Surveillance Policies: The Case of Germany,” Government Information Quarterly 34, no. 3 (2017). 126 Sara Degli Esposti, Kirstie Ball, and Sally Dibb, “What’s In It for Us? Benevolence, National Security, and Digital Surveillance,” Public Administration Review 81, no. 5 (2021). 127 Kennedy et al., “Public Understanding.” 128 Shruti Sannon, Natalya N. Bazarova, and Dan Cosley, “Privacy Lies: Understanding How, When, and Why People Lie to Protect Their Privacy in Multiple Online Contexts” (paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Montreal, April). 129 Eszter Hargittai and Alice E. Marwick, “ ‘What Can I Really Do?’: Explaining the Privacy Paradox with Online Apathy,” International Journal of Communication 10 (2016). 130 Ibid. 131 Christian P. Hoffmann, Christoph Lutz, and Giulia Ranzini, “Privacy Cynicism: A New Approach to the Privacy Paradox,” Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 10, no. 4 (2016). 132 Nora A. Draper and Joseph Turow, “The Corporate Cultivation of Digital Resignation,” New Media & Society 21, no. 8 (2019). 133 Jon Penney, “Internet Surveillance, Regulation, and Chilling Effects Online: A Comparative Case Study,” Internet Policy Review 6, no. 2 (2017); Ben Marder, Adam Joinson, Avi Shankar, and David Houghton, “The Extended ‘Chilling’ Effect of Facebook: The Cold Reality of Ubiquitous Social Networking,” Computers in Human Behavior 60 (2016); Moritz Büchi, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Christoph Lutz, Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux, Shruthi Velidi, and Salome Viljoen, “The Chilling Effects of Algorithmic Profiling: Mapping the Issues,” Computer Law & Security Review 36 (2020). 134 Büchi et al., “The Chilling Effects of Algorithmic Profiling.” 135 Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2017). 136 Jonathan W. Penney, “Internet Surveillance, Regulation, and Chilling Effects Online: A Comparative Case Study,” Internet Policy Review 6, no. 2 (2017). 137 Büchi et al., “The Chilling Effects of Algorithmic Profiling.” 138 Elizabeth Stoycheff, G. Scott Burgess, and Maria Clara Martucci, “Online Censorship and Digital Surveillance: The Relationship Between Suppression Technologies and Democratization Across Countries,” Information, Communication & Society 23, no. 4 (2020). 139 Paul Bernal, “Data Gathering, Surveillance and Human Rights: Recasting the Debate,” Journal of Cyber Policy 1, no. 2 (2016); Bernal, What Do We Know. 140 Shahin and Zheng, “Big Data and the Illusion of Choice.” 141 Yongxi Chen and Anne S. Y. Cheung, “The Transparent Self Under Big Data Profiling: Privacy and Chinese Legislation on the Social Credit System,” The Journal of Comparative Law 12, no. 2 (2017). 142 Martin Chorzempa, Paul Triolo, and Samm Sacks, China’s Social Credit System: A Mark of Progress or a Threat to Privacy? Policy Brief (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2018), https://piie.com/system/files/ documents/pb18-14.pdf. 143 Huw Roberts, Josh Cowls, Jessica Morley, Mariarosaria Taddeo, Vincent Wang, and Luciano Floridi, “The Chinese Approach to Artificial Intelligence: An Analysis of Policy, Ethics, and Regulation,” AI & Society, no. 36 (2021). 144 Samm Sacks and Lorand Laskai, “China’s Privacy Conundrum,” Slate, February 2019, https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/china-consumer-data-protectionprivacy-surveillance.html.

Privacy and surveillance  39

45 Daniel, “EU Data Governance.” 1 146 Shao, “The Surveillance Experience of Chinese University Students and the Value of Privacy in the Surveillance Society.” 147 Menghong Han, Siqi Shen, Yuexin Zhou, Zebing Xu, Tianyue Miao, and Jiayin Qi, “An Analysis of the Cause of Privacy Paradox Among SNS Users: Take Chinese College Students as an Example” (paper presented at the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii, 2019). 148 Shao, “The Surveillance Experience of Chinese University Students and the Value of Privacy in the Surveillance Society.” 149 Zheng Su, Xu Xu, and Xun Cao, “What Explains Popular Support for Government Monitoring in China?” Journal of Information Technology & Politics 19, no. 4 (2021). 150 Genia Kostka, “China’s Social Credit Systems and Public Opinion: Explaining High Levels of Approval,” New Media & Society 21, no. 7 (2019). 151 Chuncheng Liu, “Who Supports Expanding Surveillance? Exploring Public Opinion of Chinese Social Credit Systems,” International Sociology 37, no. 3 (2022); Kostka, “China’s Social Credit Systems and Public Opinion.” 152 Marc Oliver Rieger, Mei Wang, and Mareike Ohlberg, “What Do Young Chinese Think about Social Credit? It’s Complicated,” MERICS Report, 2020, https://merics. org/en/report/what-do-young-chinese-think-about-social-credit-its-complicated. 153 Genia Kostka, Léa Steinacker, and Miriam Meckel, “Between Security and Convenience: Facial Recognition Technology in the Eyes of Citizens in China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States,” Public Understanding of Science 30, no. 6 (2021). 154 Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla and Genia Kostka, “Sharing Is Caring: Willingness to Share Personal Data Through Contact Tracing Apps in China, Germany, and the US,” Information, Communication & Society (2022): 1–28. 155 Adam Knight and Rogier Creemers, “Going Viral: The Social Credit System and Covid-19,” SSRN Electronic Journal (2021), https://doi.org/10.2139/ ssrn.3770208. 156 Daithi Mac Síthigh and Mathias Siems, “The Chinese Social Credit System: A Model for Other Countries?” The Modern Law Review 82, no. 6 (2019). 157 Chenchen Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness: Technologies of Power and Subjectification in China’s Social Credit System,” Critical Asian Studies 52, no. 4 (2020). 158 Rogier Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control,” Anthropology & Archaeology Research Network Research (2018): 1–32. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. 161 Mo Chen and Jens Grossklags, “Social Control in the Digital Transformation of Society: A Case Study of the Chinese Social Credit System,” Social Sciences MDPI 11, no. 6 (2022).

2 SURVEILLANCE IN CHINA From Dang’an and Hukou to the social credit systems

Technology is deeply entangled with social practices: governments and corporations instrumentalise technology and at the same time follow certain paths due to technology’s opportunities and constraints.1 It is therefore important to account for context when analysing perceptions of surveillance technology in a country. In this chapter, I synthesise Chinese and Western research about the historical precedents of surveillance in China, the state’s current philosophy of ‘social governance’, and how surveillance operates through a combination of bottom-up grid management and top-down database centralisation. I then review scientific research as well as the grey literature to assess the current state of data centralisation on organisations and citizens and how different ‘social credit’ systems score citizens based on their financial, social, and personal behaviours to reward and punish them, up to the evolutions of digital surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic. Personal and household registers

The practice of creating personal files has been traced to the Western Zhou period (1045–771 bce).2 What started as a simple record of the appointments of governing officials during the Han dynasty (202 bce–220 ce) developed into a more elaborate system recording their personal information, evaluations, rewards, and punishments.3 The Tang dynasty standardised the archives into a system known as ‘jiaku’; subsequent dynasties kept structuring and adding information to the files; photos were added in the late Qing dynasty at the beginning of the 20th century.4 The Communist Party of China (CPC) kept these files and extended them to common citizens. In 1956, under Mao, the ‘dang’an’ (i.e. personal archives DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-4

Surveillance in China  41

system) began recording academic transcripts and degrees, professional qualifications, employment history, work appraisals, political activities, awards, and sanctions over the entire life of selected individuals.5 Urban residents as well as students and employees of state-run entities are the citizens most likely to have a dang’an6; it is used to determine their compensation, social security benefits, and access to political party membership.7 In 1958, shortly after the creation of the dang’an, a household register called ‘hukou’ was introduced, likewise derived from pre-existing systems of registration that took the family as the basic unit. This register long took the form of a physical booklet recording kinship in the household and its geographical location and roots; it was digitalised in 1998. Hukou determines where individuals may access education, employment, housing, medical care, and retirement pensions. Thus, a migrant worker whose hukou is rural cannot access social benefits in a city or register a child into a city school. Sociology professor Marcella Cassiano reports that the digital hukou contains the: name, gender, ethnicity, birthplace, birthdate, ancestral origin, height, blood type, religious affiliation, marital status, educational attainment, occupation, workplace, military service status, and ID card number of every member attached to that household. Their relationship with the head of the household (e.g., wife, son, daughter) and spatial mobility history (i.e., address of origin and destination) are also recorded.8 The hukou is both an official bureaucratic record and a symbol of a person’s lineage and ancestral birthplace.9 From the age of 16, all children who have been issued a birth permit (the permission granted by family planning to couples before they have a child) must apply for a national identity card, which is linked to the hukou with an identification number, fingerprints, and photograph. The dang’an and the hukou were core instruments of control for the Maoist party-state, together with hereditary class label (e.g. revolutionary cadres, workers, poor peasants, landlords, counter-revolutionaries), work units (danwei), and residents’ committees (jumin weiyuanhui).10 Social governance in the 21st century

In the years from 2000 to 2020, the governance philosophy of ‘social management’ (shehui guanli) morphed into one of ‘social governance’ (shehui zhili), reflecting the evolution of economic and social structures as well as technological advances that enabled new forms of surveillance. While the centrally planned economy organised around the work units, the shift to a market economy required the decentralisation of employment relationships across numerous employers and the trusting of strangers in an impersonal way. This shift disrupted economic relationships in China, which had previously

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been built around networks of work colleagues and family, in which reciprocal obligations (guanxi) entailed almost automatic trust.11 Substantial issues emerged, such as firms defaulting on their debts (e.g. the Triangle Debt in the 1990s) or not paying migrant workers’ wages, frequent product frauds, including a deadly infant milk powder fraud that still traumatises families, and endemic corruption of local governments and entrepreneurs.12 It became crucial to establish people’s good reputation (xinyu), as also happened in Europe during the Renaissance (buona fama).13 Therefore, one of the Chinese government’s primary objectives became to foster reliable social and economic relationships by building citizens and organisations’ yongxin, usually translated as trustworthiness (the closest literal translation is diligence), chengxin, usually rendered as sincerity or honesty, and xinyong, which means keeping one’s word or creditworthiness.14 One avenue the government took to build this trust in social and economic relationships was to record and make public citizens’ and organisations’ social credit – as we will see later in this chapter, social credit scores encompass a broader range of behaviours than mere financial activity. The idea is to label citizens and organisations as more or less trustworthy, so that trust judgements in everyday transactions are easier to make, much as bankers loan money to customers with a good credit history. As the politics and international relations scholar Chenchen Zhang notes, ‘the idea of a social credit system first appeared in official discourse at the Sixteenth National Congress of the CPC in 2002, under the section on ‘improving the modern market system and macroeconomic adjustment’.15 Trustworthiness, in this context, refers to moral integrity as a core socialist value rather than to compliance with laws.16 The other main objective of social governance pertains to maintaining stability (weiwen), and in particular regime stability, by pre-empting civil society threats to the CPC. The term stability emerged in the 1970s in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution and was institutionalised in response to the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.17 Social governance aims to give CPC early warning about potential political unrest within China, making public opinion easier to read and the rise of social movements faster to anticipate or prevent. To this end, General Secretary Xi Jinping invoked ‘a more systematic and innovative social governance, stressing the need to improve the capability to predict and prevent security risks’.18 Social governance requires intensive monitoring; Chinese studies professor Rogier Creemers reports that ‘more than 800 public opinion monitoring businesses and governments now employ more than two million analysts to dissect China’s online public opinion and report social trends to government departments’.19 Internet service providers and digital service companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi are required by the 2017 Cybersecurity Law and its ‘Personal Information Security Specification’ provisions to allow the State

Surveillance in China  43

to monitor their networks and facilitate the identification of their users.20 Thus, they contribute to maintaining social order and stability, in exchange for licences, government contracts, and protection from competitors.21 The data collected by commercial companies can be very detailed; for instance, bike-sharing companies record the bikes’ movements and the payment data in central databases, which implies they could trace back who cycles when and where with whom.22 Social governance, as a paradigm, is heavily infused with moral principles, reflecting the fusion of law and morality in Chinese thought. The social governance discourse often refers to the construction of a ‘spiritual civilisation’ (jingshen wenming).23 Social harmony and economic development, in the teleological perspective of social governance, depend on everyone fulfilling their function. This is the typically Confucian idea that personal integrity contributes to social harmony.24 However, social governance also builds on another important Chinese school of thought, called the legalist–legist tradition, which emphasises governance based on laws (the ‘rule by law’ paradigm, which is not the ‘rule of law’).25 This school of thought holds that people are calculating individuals and therefore need to be governed via rewards and punishments that are made public.26 Another distinctive trait of social governance is techno-positivism, that is, its framing of technology as the solution to all human problems. Several scholars note that social governance in China is built on Western cybernetics and systems theory, imported from the natural sciences and applied to societies.27 Qian Xuesen, who studied aeronautics in the United States and worked with the Army Air Forces, is considered the father of cybernetics in China.28 Cybernetics and systems theory contends that the scientific engineering of society can trigger self-correcting responses. Blurring the boundaries between state and society and between the public and the private domains nudges citizens to adjust their behaviours. In turn, when everyone conducts themselves in ways appropriate to their position in society, harmony can be achieved.29 Bottom-up and top-down approaches: grid management and the golden shield

Social governance in China operates through two complementary approaches.30 The first is bottom-up grid management, which consists of dividing a territory into geometric grids as small as one hundred square metres that are placed under the responsibility of a grid captain and security officials.31 It builds on the baojia (i.e. commune) system designed by the reformer Shang Yang in the first century bce, which split people into groups of five to ten families to monitor each other and bear collective responsibility for crimes committed in the group.32 Grid management is also in line with

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the CPC’s historical practice of the ‘mass line’, which encouraged citizens to surveil and inform on each other in daily life.33 The first grid policing programmes were piloted in the early 2000s and developed into grid management (wang ge hua guanli), which was first openly implemented in the Beijing district of Dongcheng in 2005.34 CPC cadres are assigned to villages and communities on a rotating basis. In some provinces, such as Xinjiang, their mandate includes household visits and the subsequent build-up of personal and family files, particularly on Uyghur citizens.35 Grid management combines grassroots security patrols, countless small police stations termed ‘convenience police stations’, and automated surveillance technologies such as entrance gates with face recognition technology.36 For instance, Taisau, a large company that develops face recognition systems, boasted in 2017 that their smart gates had been installed on roadside checkpoints, gas stations, university campuses, work units, hospitals, and residential compounds in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.37 The second approach, the ‘Golden Shield’ project, is a top-down project involving Big Data systems, that is, the collection and mining of a large quantity of data, and face recognition cameras. Also developed in the 2000s, it aims at automating information sharing among the state’s surveillance networks via a large centralised online database and, as such, it is the ancestor of the social credit system.38 The ultimate promise of this top-down approach is to provide real-time access to anyone’s personal records, via a digital surveillance network capable of identifying and locating individuals. This is obviously a very ambitious objective that does not seem to have been attained yet, although the police claims the Skynet network of cameras can identify any Chinese citizen within one second.39 Important milestones of the Golden Shield project were the implementation in 2004 of a new generation of identity cards carrying an 18-digit code and the push towards mandatory real-name registration of mobile phones and e-commerce and social media accounts. Whenever someone makes an online purchase, uses WeChat Pay (over a billion monthly users) or Alipay (900 million users), or comments on a social media post, their identity can be traced. A similar 18-digit identification for businesses was later introduced to unify the previously differing identification systems across different administrative regulators.40 Based on these unique identifiers, the development of credit systems became possible. In 2006, the People’s Bank of China established a credit reference centre to collect information from banks, law courts, government departments, the tax administration, and telecommunications companies.41 Several local initiatives piloted social scoring, by either sorting citizens into categories representing their level of creditworthiness or assigning them a numerical score derived from points accrued or lost based on behaviours. For instance, in 2010 in the city of Suining in Jiangsu Province,

Surveillance in China  45

citizens were given an initial 1,000 credit points. Points were deducted when they infringed the law or moral norms: drunk driving cost 50 points, failing to reimburse a loan cost 30 to 50 points, and having a child without family planning permission cost 35 points.42 A public record listed the names and actions of those who had had points deducted and citizens were sorted into A, B, C, and D categories, with A reflecting the highest level of social credit.43 The Suining pilot scheme, however, was aborted because it was strongly criticised, including by state media, which compared the experiment to the good citizen cards delivered in the Japanese occupation during World War II.44 Other experiments followed suit. The ‘Honest Qingzhen’ programme in Guizhou Province, often known as the ‘Honest Farmer’, has been better received. It has promoted the value of promise-keeping since 2010. Rural residents and households are evaluated by means of community monitoring and peer review; these evaluations determine the agricultural loans, subsidies, and other benefits one may receive.45 The social credit systems

Another critical milestone of the Golden Shield project was the publication by the State Council of the ‘Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System (2014–2020)’.46 This document, which is translated on Rogier Creemers’ website,47 emphasises the need to run and use the internet according to the law and in an honest manner, to foster a harmonious society and civilisation. Its covers four main domains: government affairs, commercial behaviour, social activities, and judicial affairs.48 Its scope is very broad, encompassing a range of public services and industries (such as public security, public education, justice and prisons, labour laws, intellectual property, environmental protection, and energy-saving, financial services), and specific occupations (such as doctors, teachers and scholars, students, social programmes users, lawyers, registered accountants, and tax advisors, high-level managers in publicly traded companies, project managers, news and media employees, and tourist guides). The outline details how trust should be emulated and encouraged, for instance, by using the ‘guiding roles of television, radio, newspapers, the Internet and other such media’, and how ‘trust-breaking acts’ should be punished. It explicitly mentions typical legalist–legist levers such as blacklists penalising infringements and green channels rewarding appropriate behaviours, as well as more Confuciansounding levers of ‘social deterrence through social moral condemnation’. I will come back to the mechanics of the social credit systems in a short while. As pointed out by Rogier Creemers, this plan does not refer to quantitative scoring as an evaluation method and does not mention big data analytics or the computation of scores for organisations or citizens.49

46  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

The actual social credit systems have been much more fragmented and disparate than the Western media have at first reported: to date, to the best of current published knowledge, there is no unique social credit score or fully centralised database, even though the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly accelerated the process of centralising information on citizens.50 Instead, the social credit system consists of three interconnected models: (1) municipal and (2) commercial social credit systems, and (3) the joint rewards and sanctions system that has established nationwide, local, and industry-specific rewards for citizens, businesses, organisations, and even governmental bodies.51 Rewards lists are called redlists (hong mingdan) and punishment lists blacklists (hei mingdan). Municipal social credit systems

Following the publication of the 2014–2020 plan, many local governments piloted social credit systems, more often focused on businesses than citizens52; honorary titles such as credit towns and credit communities were attributed to municipalities with a good ‘social credit atmosphere’.53 In 2018, the National Development and Reform Commission and the People’s Bank of China selected 12 model cities that had established red lists and blacklists in key areas, created a credit information-sharing platform, and began to share these data with other national or provincial social credit system platforms.54 Other cities took up related initiatives, such as Shenzhen, which installed facial recognition cameras and listed individuals repeatedly caught jaywalking, and Shanghai, where the app ‘Honest Shanghai’ allows users to check the credit report of local businesses.55 Local governments exert significant discretion as they design and implement social credit systems, even to the point where some of them penalise behaviours, such as petitioning, which are legally permitted by the central state’s regulations.56 A multiplicity of social credit systems therefore coexist in China, and the fact that rules differ across the systems and may even run counter to central regulations makes it complex for citizens to precisely assess what is being monitored at a given point in time, with what consequences. As of June  2021, over 400  million Chinese citizens were covered by municipal credit systems, primarily in Eastern and Middle China.57 However, except in cities like Rongcheng that enrol all citizens over 18, participation is voluntary through signing up on a mobile application or the city’s WeChat account, and is estimated at between 10 and 40 per cent.58 Municipal systems have different scales for the credit scores (e.g. 0 to 200; 0 to 1,000), different criteria to assess citizens’ behaviours (from 28 to 200 indicators), and different labels and cut-off points for categories (e.g. AAA to D; Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, Risky).59 The identity and behavioural data come from existing administrative databases rather than AI-based digital

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tracing and are stored in local databases. Some cities provide credit repair mechanisms through credit education and the signature of credit commitment letters.60 Commercial social credit systems

In addition to the governmental systems, commercial pilot projects officially started in early 2015, when the People’s Bank of China mandated eight commercial companies to lay the groundwork to establish formal credit reporting over a 6-month timeframe.61 The best known of these eight pilot schemes is Sesame Credit (zhima xinyong), developed by Ant Financial Group in the Alibaba group. Other companies include Tencent (owning WeChat) and Kaola. The licences of these eight commercial companies were not renewed; instead, the People’s Bank of China issued a single official licence in 2018, establishing a citizens’ credit scoring agency named Baihang Credit and owned by the eight companies and the National Internet Finance Association of China, which is controlled by the People’s Bank of China.62 As of 2022, Alipay and WeChat credit systems seem to be more widely used and popular, based on the discounts and benefits they offer, than most municipal credit systems.63

The joint rewards and sanctions systems

These systems were announced in 2014 and come under the jurisdiction of the National Development and Reform Commission.64 They consist, according to the best current research accessible, of a range of red and blacklists published by Credit China as well as of local and sectoral websites. The most well-known blacklists are issued by the Supreme People’s Court65 and Credit China; the Credit China platform was designed with the technical support of Baidu and inaugurated in June 2015 by the People’s Bank of China, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the State Information Centre. Names of blacklisted individuals can be searched on Credit China’s website.66 Yet there are other central data platforms related to credit, rewards, and punishments. Blacklisted companies can be identified on the website of the national enterprise credit information publicity system (www. gsxt.gov.cn),67 and the National Development and Reform Commission has developed the national credit information-sharing platform since 2015. Media and communication professor Fan Liang and colleagues have studied the national credit information-sharing platform in detail.68 At the time of their analysis, in 2018, the platform was connected to 42 central agencies, 32 local governments, and 50 market organisations. Some companies, such as Alibaba and Baidu, also shared data with it. It aggregated 400 datasets,

48  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

two-thirds of which covered businesses and commerce, a fifth dealt with individuals, and the rest captured social organisations and government affairs. The national credit platform collected 110 variables about citizens; however, many of these pertained only to specific groups of people, such as lawyers, teachers, and students. Data on individuals committing activities labelled by the government as ‘trust-breaking’ were shared directly with Credit China, which published the blacklist for the public. Individuals who were only suspected of having committed these activities were put on a focus group list; if any such individual was mentioned by three different sources, they were placed on a warning list for further investigation. The platform also included credit repair mechanisms for citizens to recover their points and a withdrawal process to be removed from a list, as announced in the 2014–2020 social credit system plan.69 Scoring

The way that the scores are calculated remains opaque, despite growing research on the social credit systems. A 2021 study that programmed web crawlers to analyse publicly available lists concludes that blacklists seem to focus primarily on law enforcement and industry regulations rather than moral or political considerations.70 The Supreme People’s Court blacklists businesses and citizens who commit crimes and offenses, do not pay their debt (also called ‘lao lai’71), or do not execute the court’s orders. Along these lines, early analyses as well as a 2021 report by the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and a 2022 study that examined national model citizens lists note that the social credit systems do not currently seem to focus on dissent and subversion.72 However, the media have given examples of villages where points were deducted for moral or political treasons, such as neglecting elderly parents or petitioning in visible areas where the internet and foreign media can pick up the petition.73 Moreover, the Human Rights Watch has identified cases of politically active individuals who have been listed without official notification and without apparent recourse to an appeals procedure. The redlists have clearer moral and political components. Individuals can appear on a redlist after receiving an honour, volunteering for the CPC League, donating money to charity, donating blood, giving information to the police, or being classified as an ecological household.74 In villages, points can be added for donating a basketball hoop to the village school or volunteering.75 Redlists highlight citizens who are role models; for instance, Tiajin has two redlists called ‘Tianjin Good Man’ and ‘Tianjin Ideological and Moral Model’, and Tibet has one called ‘Moral Models  & Good Political Ideology’.76 Posting ‘positive energy’ (a consecrated propaganda term) messages on social media highlighting the achievements of the government and of China’s economy accumulates points for users.77

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As far as commercial scores are concerned, Alibaba has said that Sesame Credit scores are updated once a month, based on five categories of data: an individual’s credit history (people typically receive their salary in a bank account, pay daily transactions using Alipay, then pay what they owe on a periodic basis, like credit card users do), ability to fulfil financial commitments (stable personal assets, ability to pay off debts), personal information that can be verified, behaviours and preferences (e.g. purchasing behaviour, donating to charity), and social relationships (e.g. the characteristics of their social networks).78 Alibaba technology director Li Yingyun said in a press interview that a person buying baby napkins would be seen as more trustworthy than someone playing video games for 10  hours a day. Frequent changes of address have also been mentioned as potentially lowering one’s credit, but there is no robust evidence as to what specific behaviour or purchases factor in the score. Rewards and punishments

A range of rewards have been mentioned. ‘Green Channels’ for trustworthy individuals give them access to reduced entrance fees to tourist sites, preferential treatment at hospitals and free health check-ups, fast lanes at airport security, and fast-tracked visa applications for Singapore and Schengen. In villages, personal credit scores are tied to community welfare programmes. High scorers may receive rice, cooking oil, and money from the village committee and be heralded as role models on village bulletin boards.79 In Rongcheng, AA and A  citizens can be promoted faster in government jobs and receive discounts and priority for public services.80 High Sesame Credit scores help people to rent bikes and cars, book hotel rooms, and buy mobile phones without having to make a deposit; they also qualify for personal credit loans.81 Some people also post their credit score on the dating site Baihe.82 In September 2017, Alibaba founder Jack Ma suggested the Canadian government should use Sesame Credit to grant expedited visas to Chinese visitors.83 Anyone who is blacklisted risks sanctions from all members of the social credit system joint conference who have signed memorandums of understanding with each other.84 Punishment can be either administrative or marketbased.85 Administrative restrictions for businesses involve penalties such as reduced access to public markets and increased scrutiny in administrative examination and approval processes. In Rongcheng, blacklisted citizens are subjected to increased monitoring, including visits by government officials; C and D citizens are banned from taking up employment in governments and public administrations, and D citizens cannot enrol their children in private schools.86 Some public schools also penalise students whose parents are on the debt-defaulter list.87

50  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

Market-based punishment may translate in facing an increase in lending rates. The court blacklist is integrated with the central bank, the company register, and the financial market regulator to block blacklisted entities from issuing securities or borrowing money.88 A very mediatized punishment pertains to restricting access to luxury goods and services, and even enrolment of the culprits’ children in private schools. For instance, blacklisted individuals may be banned from purchasing plane and high-speed train tickets. However, these sanctions can be circumvented by paying illegals brokers who book train and air tickets for blacklisted people using alternative identity papers.89 Another form of punishment is social shaming via the disclosure and exposure of non-compliant acts, as announced in the 2014–2020 social credit system plan. In some regions, people ringing blacklisted individuals are greeted with an audio message informing them that the person they are calling is irresponsible and dishonest.90 In other cities such as Taishan, blacklisted people have had their pictures displayed in public places on LED billboards and TV screens.91 On TikTok, users have been invited to identify blacklisted individuals and report them, as their pictures are shown in between videos.92 In this regard, the social credit system operates in significantly different ways from the Maoist dang’an: it uses reputation to nudge citizens to comply, whereas the dang’an built on secrecy and the uncertainty triggered by lack of access to one’s own file.93 Current status of data centralisation and algorithmic sorting in China Advances and limitations of the social credit systems

Databases are increasingly interconnected. Individuals who appeared on several lists have been flagged, with outcomes that have been noted earlier, in particular bans on buying plane and high-speed train tickets. The media reported success stories, such as police arresting suspects during festivals, stopping fraudulent schemes, and returning stolen bikes to owner. Due to these blacklists, individuals have settled long-term debts and firms hesitate to take advantage of vulnerable workers by not paying wages.94 Overall, the financial component of citizens’ credit is more centralised than the social component.95 However, the systems remain fragmented. Provinces have very disparate approaches to managing black and redlists. No less than 273 blacklists and 154 redlists were identified in 30 provinces and other administrative divisions; they are structured differently and do not contain easily comparable data.96 This fragmentation may reflect the tension between the social credit system as conceived by the central government and local governments’ objectives in the context of the National Civilized Cities Award: local officials may

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be eager to broaden the scope of social credit punishments to meet the criteria for ‘civilised cities’, even though the social credit systems were initially meant to focus on compliance with laws and regulations or policies of the Party Central Committee.97 Moreover, the 2021 MERICS report indicates that municipal scoring remains rudimentary, with little behavioural data involved in scoring; in practice, scores stem mostly from digitised administrative documents and resemble airlines loyalty programmes. MERICS also notes that the scoring is only partially digitised, with ‘little more than the use of Excel worksheets or the WeChat app’.98 For instance, in Rongcheng, social credit data are completed manually by collection officers appointed by individual departments and subdistricts. This exposes credit data to biases and errors, as well as the coercion or corruption of the collection officers.99 In addition, a scholar who worked in a commercial credit scoring team for several months reported experiencing difficulties in securing data from external agencies and businesses, and even from internal social media and payments groups because of competition barriers within the company. She reported encountering issues pertaining to missing data, errors, and even methodological obfuscation due to incentives to overfit models – when the team did not reach the threshold for a statistical test of a model, the supervisor added the test values of two other models that had been computed on different samples, despite the obvious violation of methodology.100 Such reports cast doubts on the rigour of the scores. Furthermore, there is currently little algorithmic processing of the data that would enable predictive computations or collective assessment of groups based on social sorting.101 In other words, the blacklists and social credit systems operate in a post-hoc manner, once behaviours have been observed, as opposed to using the data to predict and prevent future behaviour. One study states that the United States is further along than China in algorithmic governance, as shown in the use of algorithmic predictive assessments to generate no-fly lists.102 In fact, MERICS views the social credit system as the least digitised of China’s surveillance systems, compared with the Golden Shield, Skynet, Safe Cities and Police Clouds, Sharp Eyes, and the Xinjiang IJOP.103 Police clouds (jing wu yun) connect different databases, including housing and employment records, to speedily identify people, places, and businesses of interest.104 Several provinces are piloting predictive policing, with the Xinjiang Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) likely the most advanced. At least 75 behavioural indicators are flagged, such as foreign travel of extensive duration, proactive support for local mosques, the use of a VPN (virtual private network; this tool allows access to websites that are not accessible in China) or foreign applications that help evade surveillance (such as WhatsApp), abnormally high electricity consumption, and relationships with other people who have

52  Privacy, surveillance, and the social credit systems

been flagged by the system. Individuals considered to present a national security risk can be subjected to increased police investigation, restriction from entering designated public spaces, or extrajudicial detention.105 Pandemic acceleration and function creep

The digitalisation and centralisation of data accelerated with the urgent need to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.106 As David Lyon noted, the COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied worldwide by a ‘pandemic of surveillance’.107 In 2021, Privacy International documented on their website that ‘at least 27 countries are using data from cell phone companies to track the movements of their citizens’.108 In China, the government combined physical checks and data collection by human labour at the level of the local grids with digital data collection through mobile applications; the Internet + infrastructure that already collected data for government initiatives since 2015 centralised the information collected at the level of the grids into a cloud-based platform and ensured the flow of information back to the grids.109 Alipay’s Health Code (jiankangma) application reportedly used artificial intelligence to analyse reported COVID-19 symptoms and current and past location data to sort users into green, yellow, or red groups based on their risk of having contracted the disease. Up until December  2022, showing a green code on one’s mobile phone was required to access a number of subway stations, highway off-ramps, shops, workplaces, and apartment buildings in more than a hundred municipalities.110 In a development typical of function creep, that is the tendency to assume additional functions over time, existing surveillance systems have been repurposed to achieve new goals.111 First, the technical integration of different tools and databases has accelerated. For instance, smartphone geospatial tracking data from China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile were merged to monitor the movements of the population and then coupled with citizens’ health codes.112 Second, doctoral work from Adam Knight and his advisor Rogier Creemers shows that the blacklists and social credit systems have been retooled to the pandemic context: new ‘trust-breaking’ behaviours included hiding virus symptoms, concealing recent travel, evading medical treatment, or having contact with suspected patients. Likewise, businesses selling pandemic-related products without adequate trademarking or licensing have been blacklisted.113 In the award-winning city of Rongcheng, 10 points were deducted from the social credit score of citizens not wearing a face mask in public and 50 points for citizens failing to self-isolate or meeting with friends or family for meals or to play mah-jong. Similarly, businesses and tourist attractions risked being downgraded to a B if they remained open despite a lockdown.114 Redlists have been retooled as well, with points given for volunteering for essential services for more than 3 days, working on the

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frontline or donating cash. Importantly, blacklists were made more flexible to account for economic hardships during the pandemic, with credit grace periods granted to individuals and businesses that had lost income due to lockdown restrictions or quarantining, and appeal and restoration channels opened for medical firms that needed to restore their creditworthiness.115 At the same time, however, there are signs that the government may also be curbing function creep and realigning the social credit systems with existing laws and regulations. In 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) updated the 2014 social credit system plan to standardise blacklists and punishments and ensure that they have a legal basis.116 The NDRC also established a Social Credit Law Working Group including the People’s Bank of China, central ministries, local governments, universities, and credit service agencies.117 In December 2020, the State Council asked local governments to not punish behaviours that were not already illegal and to observe proportionality between offenses and penalties. The NDRC provided new guidance on credit recovery in May 2021, and a new social credit system plan was issued in March 2022.118 In November 2022, a draft law on the Establishment of the Social Credit System was released for public comments.119 In line with a trend towards recentralisation, the law clarifies which data should be collected and what punishment can be carried out; it reserves the power to define behaviours considered ‘untrustworthy’ to the central government.120 *** In this chapter, I have briefly retraced the historical roots of digital surveillance in China, discussed the state’s philosophy of ‘social governance’, and explained how surveillance operates through bottom-up grid management and top-down database centralisation. I have then introduced readers to the many ‘social credit’ systems, their functioning, and limitations. Considering recent developments, I have pondered the mission creep of these credit systems during the pandemic as well as the clarifications and restrictions that the central government is issuing to address scholars and citizens’ concerns. Overall, the first part of this book has introduced readers to privacy, surveillance, and the historical, socio-economic, and political Chinese context in which digital surveillance unfolds. The next part now turns to discussing the set of three related narratives of moral shortcomings that emerged from the interview data. Notes 1 Wanda J. Orlikowski, “Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work,” Organization Studies 28, no. 9 (2007). 2 Min Jiang, “A Brief Prehistory of China’s Social Credit System,” Communication and the Public 5, no. 3–4 (2020).

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3 Ibid; Citing S. Deng, “The Origins of Personnel Files,” Archives (Dang’an Xue Yanji) 3 (1989). 4 Jiang, “A Brief Prehistory of China’s Social Credit System.” 5 Yongxi Chen and Anne S. Y. Cheung, “The Transparent Self Under Big Data Profiling: Privacy and Chinese Legislation on the Social Credit System,” The Journal of Comparative Law 12, no. 2 (2017); Melanie Manion, “The Cadre Management System, Post Mao: The Appointment, Promotion, Transfer and Removal of Party and State Leaders,” China Quarterly 102 (1985). 6 Chen and Cheung, “The Transparent Self”; Yunxiang Yan, “The Chinese Path to Individualization,” The British Journal of Sociology 61, no. 3 (2010). 7 Fan Liang, Vishnupriya Das, Nadiya Kostyuk, and Muzammil M. Hussain, “Constructing a Data-Driven Society: China’s Social Credit System as a State Surveillance Infrastructure,” Policy & Internet 10, no. 4 (2018). 8 Marcella Siqueira Cassiano, “China’s Hukou Platform: Windows into the Family,” Surveillance & Society 17, no. 1–2 (2019): 235. 9 Ibid. 10 Yan, “The Chinese Path to Individualization”; Séverine Arsène, “Le système de crédit social, ou la gestion technocratique de l’ordre public,” in Penser en Chine, ed. Anne Cheng (Paris: Folio Histoire Gallimard, 2021). 11 Karen Li Xan Wong and Amy Shields Dobson, “We’re Just Data: Exploring China’s Social Credit System in Relation to Digital Platform Ratings Cultures in Westernised Democracies,” Global Media and China 4, no. 2 (2019). 12 Liang et al., “Constructing a Data-Driven Society”; Chenchen Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness: Technologies of Power and Subjectification in China’s Social Credit System,” Critical Asian Studies 52, no. 4 (2020). 13 Jean-Louis Rocca, “Crédit Social: Spécificité Chinoise ou processus de modernisation?” Sociétés politiques comparées 51 (2020). 14 Rogier Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control,” Anthropology & Archaeology Research Network Research (2018): 1–32. 15 Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness,” 574. 16 Anne S. Y. Cheung and Yongxi Chen, “From Datafication to Data State: Making Sense of China’s Social Credit System and Its Implications,” Law & Social Inquiry 47, no. 4 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2021.56. 17 James Leibold, “Surveillance in China’s Xinjiang Region: Ethnic Sorting, Coercion, and Inducement,” Journal of Contemporary China 29, no. 121 (2020). 18 Samantha R. Hoffman, “Programming China: The Communist Party’s Autonomic Approach to Managing State Security” (PhD diss., University of Nottingham, 2017), 141. 19 Rogier Creemers, “Cyber China: Upgrading Propaganda, Public Opinion Work and Social Management for the Twenty-First Century,” Journal of Contemporary China 26, no. 103 (2017): 90. 20 Yu-Jie Chen, Ching-Fu Lin, and Han-Wei Liu, “ ‘Rule of Trust’: The Power and Perils of China’s Social Credit Megaproject,” Columbia Journal of Asian Law 32, no. 1 (2018). 21 Min Jiang and King‐Wa Fu, ‘Chinese Social Media and Big Data: Big Data, Big Brother, Big Profit?” Policy and Internet 10, no. 4 (2018). 22 Kai Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State (New York: Custom House, 2020). 23 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 24 Arsène, “Le système de crédit social en Chine,” Réseaux 1 (2021). 25 Arsène, “Le système de crédit social, ou la gestion technocratique de l’ordre public.” 26 Arsène, “Le système de crédit social en Chine.” 27 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.”

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28 Josh Chin and Liza Lin, Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2022). 29 Ibid. 30 Jue Jiang, “The Eyes and Ears of the Authoritarian Regime: Mass Reporting in China,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 51, no. 5 (2020). 31 Leibold, “Surveillance in China’s Xinjiang Region.” 32 Julia Р. Bayer, Valeria A. Vasilyeva, and Inna A. Vetrenko, “The Social Credit System of the People’s Republic of China Through the Eyes of Foreign Researchers,” Управленческое консультирование, no. 7 (2020). 33 Jiang, “The Eyes and Ears of the Authoritarian Regime.” 34 Rogier Creemers, Peter Mattis, Samantha Hoffman, and Pamela Kyle Crossley, “What Could China’s ‘Social Credit System’ Mean for Its Citizens,” Foreign Policy, August 15, 2016. 35 Leibold, “Surveillance in China’s Xinjiang Region”; Chin and Lin, Surveillance State. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Hoffman, “Programming China.” 39 Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized. 40 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 45 Xin Dai, “Toward a Reputation State: The Social Credit System Project of China,” SSRN Research Papers, 2018, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3193577. 46 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 47 Rogier Creemers, “State Council Guiding Opinions concerning Establishing and Perfecting Incentives for Promise-Keeping and Joint Punishment Systems for TrustBreaking, and Accelerating the Construction of Social Sincerity,” China Copyright and Media, https://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/ state-council-guiding-opinions-concerning-establishing-and-perfecting-incentivesfor-promise-keeping-and-joint-punishment-systems-for-trust-breaking-and-accel erating-the-construction-of-social-sincer/. 48 Liang et al., “Constructing a Data-Driven Society.” 49 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 50 Katja Drinnhausen and Vincent Brussee, “China’s Social Credit System in 2021: From Fragmentation Towards Integration,” MERICS China Monitor (Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), 2021, https://merics.org/en/report/ chinas-social-credit-system-2021-fragmentation-towards-integration. 51 Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness.” 52 Haili Li and Genia Kostka, “Accepting But Not Engaging with It: Digital Participation in Local Government-Run Social Credit Systems in China,” Policy & Internet 14 (2022). 53 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 54 Genia Kostka and Lukas Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship: Behavioral Responses to China’s Emerging Social Credit Systems,” Policy & Internet 12, no. 3 (2019). 55 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 56 Rui Hou and Diana Fu, “Sorting Citizens: Governing via China’s Social Credit System,” Governance (2022), https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12751. 57 Fan Liang and Yuchen Chen, “The Making of ‘Good’ Citizens: China’s Social Credit Systems and Infrastructures of Social Quantification,” Policy & Internet 14, no. 1 (2022).

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58 Li and Kostka, “Accepting But Not Engaging with It.” 59 Liang and Chen, “The Making of ‘Good’ Citizens.” 60 Ibid. 61 Liang et al., “Constructing a Data-Driven Society.” 62 Stephen Graham and David Wood, “Digitizing surveillance: categorization, space, inequality”, Critical Social Policy 23, no. 2 (2003); Kostka and Antoine, ­“Fostering Model Citizenship.” 63 Li and Kostka, “Accepting But Not Engaging with It.” 64 Liang et al., “Constructing a Data-Driven Society.” 65 Ibid. 66 www.creditchina.gov.cn; Daithí Mac Síthigh and Mathias Siems, “The Chinese Social Credit System: A Model for Other Countries?” The Modern Law Review 82, no. 6 (2019). 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Severin Engelmann, Mo Chen, Lorenz Dang, and Jens Grossklags, “Blacklists and Redlists in the Chinese Social Credit System: Diversity, Flexibility, and Comprehensiveness” (paper presented at the Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Society Conference AIES 21, Virtual Event, New York, May 19–21, 2021). 71 Mo Chen and Jens Grossklags, “Social Control in the Digital Transformation of Society: A Case Study of the Chinese Social Credit System,” Social Sciences 11, no. 6 (2022). 72 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System”; Drinnhausen and Brussee, “China’s Social Credit System in 2021”; Hou and Fu, “Sorting Citizens.” 73 Nectar Gan, “The Complex Reality of China’s Social Credit System: Hi-Tech Dystopian Plot or Low-Key Incentive Scheme?” South China Morning Post, February 7, 2019. 74 Arsène, “Le système de crédit social en Chine.” 75 Gan, “The Complex Reality of China’s Social Credit System.” 76 Engelmann et al., “Blacklists and Redlists in the Chinese Social Credit System.” 77 Jiang and Fu, “Chinese Social Media and Big Data.” 78 Kostka and Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship”; Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 79 Gan, “The Complex Reality of China’s Social Credit System.” 80 Liang and Chen, “The Making of “Good” Citizens.” 81 Rachel Botsman, “Big Data Meets Big Brother as China Moves to Rate Its Citizens,” Wired, 2017, www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-creditscore-privacy-invasion; Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 82 Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 83 Liang et al., “Constructing a Data-Driven Society.” 84 Chen, Lin, and Liu, “ ‘Rule of Trust’.” 85 Liang et al., “Constructing a Data-Driven Society.” 86 Liang and Chen, “The Making of “Good” Citizens”; Wong and Dobson, “We’re Just Data.” 87 Drinnhausen and Brussee, “China’s Social Credit System in 2021.” 88 Martin Chorzempa, Paul Triolo, and Samm Sacks, China’s Social Credit System: A Mark of Progress or a Threat to Privacy? Policy Brief (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2018), https://piie.com/system/files/ documents/pb18-14.pdf. 89 Ibid. 90 Meg Jing Zeng, “China’s Social Credit System Puts Its People Under Pressure to Be Model Citizens,” The Conversation, January 23, 2018.

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91 Wong and Dobson, “We’re Just Data.” 92 Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized. 93 Arsène, “Le système de crédit social, ou la gestion technocratique de l’ordre public.” 94 Dai, “Toward a Reputation State.” 95 Zeyi Yang, “China Just Announced a New Social Credit Law,” MIT Tech Review, November 22, 2022, www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/22/1063605/chinaannounced-a-new-social-credit-law-what-does-it-mean/. 96 Engelmann et al., “Blacklists and Redlists in the Chinese Social Credit System.” 97 Alexander Trauth-Goik, “Civilized Cities or Social Credit? Overlap and Tension between Emergent Governance Infrastructures in China,” Global Media and China 4 (2023). 98 Drinnhausen and Brussee, “China’s Social Credit System in 2021,” 17. 99 Kostka and Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship.” 100 Ruowen Xu, Yuval Millo, and Crawford Spence, “Big Data Credit Scoring: Risk Management in Chinese Social Credit Programmes” (paper presented at the 35th Annual Meeting of the European Group for Organization Studies, Edinburgh, July 4–6, 2019). 101 Chorzempa, Triolo, and Sacks, “China’s Social Credit System”; Creemers, “China’s Social Credit System.” 102 Chorzempa, Triolo, and Sacks, “China’s Social Credit System.” 103 Ibid. 104 Derek Grossman, Christian Curriden, Logan Ma, Lindsey Polley, John Davis Williams, and Cortez A. Cooper, Chinese Views of Big Data Analytics (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020). 105 Ibid. 106 Adam Knight and Rogier Creemers, “Going Viral: The Social Credit System and Covid-19,” SSRN Electronic Journal (2021), www.ssrn.com/abstract=3770208. 107 David Lyon, Pandemic Surveillance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022). 108 Ibid. 109 Ausma Bernot and Marcella Siqueira Cassiano, “China’s COVID-19 Pandemic Response: A First Anniversary Assessment,” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 30 (2022). 110 Paul Mozur, Raymond Zhong, and Aaron Krolik, “In Coronavirus Fight, China Gives Citizens a Color Code, with Red Flags,” The New York Times, March 1, 2020. 111 Ausma Bernot, Alexander Trauth-Goik, and Susan Trevaskes, “Handling Covid19 with Big Data in China: Increasing ‘Governance Capacity’ or ‘Function Creep’?” Australian Journal of International Affairs 75, no. 5 (2021). 112 Ibid. 113 Knight and Creemers, “Going Viral: The Social Credit System and Covid-19.” 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid. 116 Adam Knight, “Basket Case: Reform and China’s Social Credit Law,” China Law and Society Review 6, no. 2 (2023). 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid; Yang, “China Just Announced a New Social Credit Law.” 119 Ibid. 120 Knight, “Basket Case.”

PART II

Anguishing narratives of moral shortcomings

3 RULES AND MONITORING WILL RAISE PEOPLE’S ‘MORAL QUALITY’

In China, it’s very strange, the mindset of certain people, they take things for granted. I’m not trying to defend the government, but China needs to be improved.

This chapter and the next two chapters analyse the three moral shortcomings narratives that produced shame and anguish for the participants to this research and in so doing set the table for digital surveillance to be perceived as a useful solution in China, at least on an abstract level when it applies to others. The first of these shortcomings is the lack of ‘moral quality’ in China, which makes rules and punishment desirable. The interview guide did not include any question about rules, punishment, or morals. Yet the words follow/obey/violate/break rules, teach/punish, and kept coming back. ‘Moral quality’ (‘suzhi’, sometimes translated as moral character or integrity) was also abundantly present. The participants brought up rules and punishment when asked what they thought about cameras in public areas, facial recognition that enables cameras to display jaywalkers’ pictures on the street, blacklists, and the social credit system. They held rules in high regard, and few ever questioned their usefulness or relevance. They expressed high acceptance of punishment when rules had been broken and even a desire for increased punishment (of others). Having carefully analysed the participants’ trains of thoughts, it struck me how the same persons who were patriotic and proud of China also repeatedly

DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-6

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lamented the lack of moral quality of their fellow citizens and used language that implied that people should be treated as children, with punishment acting as education. Interestingly, they emphasised that rules must be clear: their primary concern was not to object to rules and monitoring; it was that if rules were not clear enough, they would not be able to obey and therefore may get in trouble. This widespread concern implies that, in fact, rules currently lack clarity, which is in line with scholarly work on rules and their application in Chinese society.1 And indeed, what I observed in my travels was a solid dose of pragmatism regarding the following and the monitoring of rules. Everyone said that breaking the rules was bad (bu hao), but many did break the rules when they could and the punishments when the offenders were caught were not systematic. Rhetorically, rules were held in high consideration, while in everyday life they lacked solidity and enforcement. At first, I wondered if it simply meant that rules were upheld as a facade, in line with the importance of social judgement and face in China, which I discuss in more depth in Chapter 5. However, patterns emerging from data analysis connected the narratives of rules and punishment with others regarding the pursuit of ‘civilisation’ (wenming), suggesting a deeper moral importance attached to these narratives. Indeed, the term moral quality refers to ‘civilized manners, cosmopolitanism, professionalism and sophisticated consumer tastes of the modern urban citizen’,2 although it is not unequivocally defined in terms of content.3 In official narratives, moral education (suzhi jiaoyu) to increase Chinese citizens’ moral quality is framed as crucial to renew with the ‘five thousand years of continuous civilisation’. ‘Suzhi discourse’ is considered by China scholars such as anthropologist Andrew Kipnis to be a field of governing in China,4 and an important component of the neo-socialist governmentality that developed in China following Deng Xiaoping’s reforms.5 As for ‘civilisation’, it is a ‘core socialist value’ associated with ideas of culture, development, manners, modernity, and responsibility.6 Indeed, the research participants viewed rules and punishment as important foundations of the ‘civilised’ foreign societies that they looked up to. Several expressed the view that Western and Japanese citizens were more disciplined than Chinese citizens and that, therefore, pursuing the dream of civilisation meant giving rules a central role. In turn, rules justified the monitoring of citizens: where there are rules, there needs to be a record of what people do, and punishment if they break the rules. In the words of the politics and international relations professor Chenchen Zhang, explanations based on moral quality have been presented as self-evident truth and serve as a naturalised justification for the social credit system’s moral discourse on trustworthiness.7

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BOX 1  NOTE ON THE INTERVIEW EXCERPTS All research participants’ names have been replaced with pseudonyms. Numbers following the excerpts are the participants’ number codes. They reflect the order in which the interviews were conducted. Transcriptions of the followup questions and prompts are preceded with ‘Researcher’. The excerpts have intentionally not been edited to perfect their grammar, to remain as close as possible to the original words of the participants or the interpreter. With few exceptions, neither the participants nor the interpreters were fully bilingual.

The rhetoric of rules and punishment in Chinese society The abundant narrative of rules and punishment

Rules and punishment were ubiquitous themes in the interviews. Figure 3.1 offers a visual representation of the words associated with this train of thoughts, as rendered by NVivo 12:

FIGURE 3.1 Word

cloud on rules and punishment, as rendered by NVivo 12

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I was struck by the salience of these words from the first interviews. Kang Lee, a university dean, brought up the importance of rules in every realm of everyday life, drawing a parallel between families, classrooms, and societies. He had rules at home to curb the amount of time his son spent on the internet (maximum one hour per day); he encouraged his son to talk with his grand-mother instead of surfing the web. He also had set up rules in the classroom, allowing his students to use their cell phone but not in disruptive ways. He was of the mind that since rules are helpful in families and classrooms, the government, too, should have and follow rules. In many participants’ discourse (which did not necessarily mirror their behaviours), things were simple: there were rules, you knew what to do and it was easy to know good from bad. This quote from Hsieh Xiaobo, a middle-aged hotel manager, is a vivid illustration of this rule narrative: Life is step by step, you want to be a good person, treat your wife well, treat your kids well, you want to do everything right. If you don’t follow the rules, it’s bad. (32) There was little questioning of the need for rules, their relevance, or ethical adequacy. In other words, rules were assimilated to morals, and who would question that a society needs to know right from wrong? If a rule existed and you broke it, most participants argued that you deserved punishment. As noted by Chinese ethnographer Xinhuan Wang, ideas of responsibility and judgement are rooted in Chinese culture, with people often referring to an old saying: ‘ren zai zuo, tian zai kan’ (‘people are acting, the sky is watching’). In other words, the ‘sky’ keeps a record of all good and bad deeds.8 If not the sky, then family and community members: Sébastien Roussillat, who became popular in China for being the first European to win the prestigious televised contest Chinese Bridge, notes that social judgement within families, work units, and villages has been a greater source of behaviour regulation than formal laws.9 Acceptance of judgement and punishment is clearly expressed by Niu Liya, a young female migrant working in a Shanghai hairdressing salon. I had given the use of a VPN (virtual private network) as an example of a behaviour that was sometimes sanctioned with a fine and therefore could lower one’s social credit score. She did not know what a VPN was, and the interpreter explained that it is a tool one can use to access foreign websites; then she exclaimed: It’s normal, you know it’s not right, as a Chinese citizen you are forbidden to use that, so you need to be punished, you should accept the punishment. (31)

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The same idea is conveyed by Zhong Li, an older female accountant: Researcher: I  heard that if you cross the street at the red light, there are cameras, and your picture shows up on the street? Zhong Li: Rule breaking has been a problem in China. Even if it [displaying the picture publicly] is a rough method, it’s very efficient. People who break the rules, they did bad things. Researcher: And the blacklist, what do you think about it? Zhong Li: To my knowledge, people on that list have done things that harm public safety. I totally understand and accept that. (39) What’s more, some participants such as Deng Chao, an older general manager of a state-owned company, were of the mind that punishment is right whether or not the offender intended to break the law: I have never experienced punishment from the police. We support the government: there must be some kind of rule. If they break the law, OK, they must be punished, the government must intervene. Even if you don’t do it intentionally, you did it, you should be punished. (17) Many participants expressed an acceptance of rules, even if these associated consequences were embarrassing or could hurt their self-esteem. Scholars have argued that in China, punishment derives from the shame inflicted by a person to the community, rather than from the guilt this person may feel; for this reason, publicly exposing wrongdoers is seen as a useful method to regulate the person’s behaviour.10 Acceptance was highest, and perhaps harshest, among those who had less education such as Kuo Uchi, a 50-year-old female taxi driver and Jia Qiang, a 45-year-old ex-military bus driver, both with unfinished high school education: Kuo Uchi:

You must expose the photos of the people who cross the street at the red light because they violate rules. Researcher: But it’s embarrassing for them? Kuo Uchi: I  disagree. We must have rules, rules for behaviours. The embarrassment is a tiny thing; the big thing is you influence others as well as yourself. Researcher: And what do you think of cameras installed directly in cars to watch drivers? [I chose this example because of her occupation.] Kuo Uchi: I like that, I’m willing to accept that if I violate the rules, the police will know. (46)

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Jia Qiang: The blacklist is a good system. Researcher: Might it hurt people’s self-esteem? Jia Qiang: They do not have integrity, so they should not have selfesteem. (40) Rules were seen as maintaining order and control, as expressed by Wang Lan, a 60-year-old dormitory aunt (person in charge of monitoring university students’ dormitories), and Xiao Huian, a young female secretary, both with technical secondary school education: [Discussing people who have their picture shown when jaywalking] It’s good because some people deserve it. You violate public order and discipline. The exposure of your face gives you a lesson. (45) We need it in China because if someone breaks the rule, the guy [who watches the camera feed] needs to know, we need to control that. (16) Note that when Xiao Huian talks of ‘the guy’, she makes no claims to know more precisely who exerts the monitoring. Among the more educated persons, there was an added layer in this narrative that clearly distinguished between the good people who obeyed the rules and the bad ones. Such a Manichean distinction is part of the core justifications for the social credit system: for instance, Professor Zhang Zheng, the Dean of the faculty of economics at Beijing University and advisor on the social credit system, is quoted to have said: ‘It’s quite simple. There are two kinds of people: good and bad. Now imagine a word where the good ones are rewarded and the bad ones are punished’.11 Naturally, the research participants always classified themselves among the dutiful ones. For instance, Guo Chuntao, a human resource director in a state-owned company, disliked rule breakers because she herself made the effort to follow the rules: I obey the rules, I pay my bills, I go early to the airport, I don’t like people who violate rules. (38) Ma Bao, a 25-year-old auditor, had studied abroad and proudly insisted that we speak English. He was a political sciences student and keen to share his political views with me (he spontaneously shared at the end of the interview that he was a member of the Communist Party of China, CPC). He felt that he would not personally be exposed to punishment; however, people who broke them should be punished: If I don’t do anything illegal, or disrupt order on the high – speed train, I  won’t be punished or investigated. From my personal standpoint, this type of behaviour should be prohibited and punished, so I  think the advantages of this social system are greater than the disadvantages. (25)

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As a result of holding rules as unquestionable principles, the onus of making sure one obeys rules fell on individuals. When I  asked Tseng Wenqian, a young woman working in a large Chinese IT company, if she felt confident she knew how to avoid being blacklisted, she explained that it was her responsibility to know. She also felt that if she happened to be blacklisted, it was her responsibility to wash herself back to normal: Tseng Wenqian: The country lists you on the blacklist when you knew the rules and you violated them. I won’t do this. Researcher: Do you know all the rules? Tseng Wenqian: You can’t know all the rules, that’s true. If I  was listed, I would try to check why, to clarify what I have done so I can avoid it in the future. Researcher: In the West, some people find the blacklist scary. Tseng Wenqian: We use our common sense; you know what you should do or not do. Sometimes there are special requirements you don’t know. If you are blacklisted you should clarify why and correct it, clarify if there was some misunderstanding, so you have a chance to wash yourself. (41) Some people did more than accept or approve of punishment: they called for more stringent punishment, as did these two men, Shi Ping the taxi driver and Hong Tao the sales representative from a large IT company: [Discussing people who have their picture shown when jaywalking] Yes, there are two such cameras near here. They won’t fine you, but they show your face and mask your eyes. It’s good: you violated the rules, you should be educated and punished. They should not mask the eyes, if you ask me. (44) We have the laws, but the situation would be better if we implemented them well. There should be more efforts to prevent, and then punish them seriously. (42) Only one person, Su Kueng, a transportation engineer with a master’s education, challenged the idea that rules were an imperative in society and that they should always be followed. He adopted a professorial tone as he discussed Chinese culture, in line with the perhaps stereotypical Western understanding of the yin and the yang principles: If you deal with things flexibly, it’s not a bad thing. Read the Tao Te Ching by Laozi [the founder of Taoism]. Chinese people can use different ways to explain things and each way is right. If you can justify yourself, it’s OK. The Chinese history is complex, there are so many cultures, Taoism, Confucius, others. You don’t learn that; it’s in your genetics, you are born with

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this culture. The good and the bad are not separate, you can learn from bad things, nothing is totally wrong or right. (23) In addition, a few participants questioned punishment as a viable method; I analyse these marginal but interesting objections in Chapter 9. Worries about the opacity of rules and criteria for punishment

The dominant concern expressed by the research participants was not that they were being monitored in extensive and intrusive ways or were subjected to blacklists that could channel their behaviour. The major issue that they grappled with was the risk of arbitrary punishment due to unclear rules or rules that were applied in an unpredictable way. The opacity of the rules and of the actions that could lend one on a blacklist really worried them because it undermined their control over how to stay out of trouble. This concern resonates with sinologist Jean-François Billeter’s observation of the paucity or even absence of laws that are collectively decided and to whom all, including the government, submit themselves  – in other words, the absence of the rule of law. In his eyes, the blurriness of rules serves a political purpose by keeping citizens on their toes and divided.12 Relatedly, a 2020 survey cited by MERICS found that 83.9 per cent of respondents were afraid of being blacklisted without knowing.13 In addition, a qualitative study fielded in 2019 found interviewees expressed concerns not about the fact that blacklists of citizens had been established but about the fact that citizens may be unfairly identified as debtors if, for instance, they failed to pay back a loan because a local government cancelled a planned investment.14 In this research, the participants were concerned that they and their family might suffer consequences if the rules and the ways in which people’s social credit scores were computed were not known to them. They felt that if they knew the rules well, they would be fine and thus were looking to ensure their safety by understanding what was expected of them: When people break the rules, I can understand. If I know there are cameras and I  know the rules, it won’t happen, it’s OK [meaning: I  won’t break the rule and I will be OK]. (41) Acceptance of rules was directly tied to knowing the rule and how to avoid punishment: I have not experienced that myself. I don’t like the idea of someone being fined when jaywalking. I  could not accept that because I  did not know about that. Maybe in the future, if that rule is explained. (34) Researcher: Is the blacklist a good system, do you think?

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Guo Chuntao: I need to think [brief silence]. It depends on the situation: when rules are clear, people [who break them] are listed on the blacklist, it’s OK. If the rules are not clear, you do not know what behaviour leads you on the blacklist, that is not good. (38) Therefore, participants in this research directed their concern on the transparency and predictability of the criteria and algorithms underlying the social credit system rather than on challenging the existence of the system itself. For instance, when I told Hé Gang, an IT architect with a technical secondary education, that some commercial credit scores rated people’s purchases and therefore your score could go up or down depending on the kind of books you purchase, he pondered: I don’t know. It would be hard to run this system, the rules are complicated. What is the definition of a good book for instance? It’s controversial, we can’t have clear rules. If it’s true, that system, it must be just for guidance, the government will want people to behave towards this direction, to advocate good things. It’s easier to score for obvious things, for instance if I sacrifice myself. If the rules are not clear, it’s difficult to obey. (37) Pushing the reasoning further, Wu Zhan, whom I  interviewed as she was starting a faculty job in China, challenged the objectivity of the social credit system’s scoring: I don’t trust the criteria, and the people who evaluate me. Can people get around it? [there she showed signs of discomfort: she kept silent a whole minute, sighed, changed seating on the couch, and then resumed speaking quickly, as if she wanted to express herself before she changed her mind about speaking up] It’s subjective, very unreliable, it’s totally subjective. (1) Her objection, ‘Can people get around it?’, alludes to the common knowledge in China that rich people can escape tax by sending their money and sometimes their families abroad; as in other countries, powerful people have an easier time with the law than others.15 Wu Zhan, who had just returned to China after a PhD in the United States, was assessing the social credit system on the basis of whether the same rules applied to everyone. She was the only one of the participants to share this reasoning out loud. The fluctuating application of rules and punishment

This concern about the lack of clarity of rules and criteria for punishment should be understood in light of the pragmatic observance of rules and

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application of punishment  – some Chinese scholars evoke the country’s ‘intractable, long-existing regulatory problems’ and authorities’ ‘laxity’ in enforcing laws.16 Indeed, in my travels in big cities as in the countryside, I  observed a lot of tiny rule breaking, and not a great deal of punishment. For instance, in the security queues in which I lined up in train stations, which can be several hundred meters long, many people tried their luck jumping the queue: they went to the agent monitoring the queue and negotiated. I tried that myself one day when I was a bit short on time to catch my train; it was very common. In Xinjiang, I saw children steal dry raisins on a merchant’s stall and take off running and laughing out loud; it appears this was benign, despite the cameras everywhere. On a long drive from Kashgar to lake Karakul, where I could not go without a local driver and guide, I saw the driver slow down before traffic cameras and then happily speed up, even though there were actual traffic officers along the road. More surprisingly, I found that some people on planes were dangerously undisciplined. In an otherwise awe-inspiring flight over the Taklamakan desert from Kashgar to Chengdu, I saw five members of a group unbuckle and rise to retrieve their cabin luggage as soon as the captain had announced we were beginning our descent. The crew had to rush in and order them back into their seats, amidst vivid protests by members of the group. On that flight, an announcement had been made shortly after boarding that the cabin was a public space, that we may be subjected to audio or video recording, and that violating the rules or not obeying crew members’ directions could result in a social credit score penalty. That announcement had made a great impression on me, but not on this group, obviously. Talking about the implementation of rules, Paul, a French teacher who had been living in China for several years, narrated the regular university inspections by Beijing auditors. These inspections lasted one week, during which everyone was punctual and refrained from smoking at work. Then everyone relaxed and went back to normal. He concluded that the rule of thumb was ‘do what you want, just don’t get caught’. Quite often the rulebreaking was not caused by ignorance of the rule. For instance, a taxi driver who was talking on his cell phone while driving turned to me apologetically and said, ‘bu hao, wo jiedao bu hao’ – ‘this is bad, I know this is bad’. Yet he continued talking on the phone. As a participant explained: In China, rules are made to be broken, they are for other people. It’s not like in the West, or Japan. Australians, Canadians, Americans, they obey rules very strictly. In China, not always. We make rules constantly and we break them overnight. (4)

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Punishment was also pragmatic and varying. Paul explained that enforcement of rules was generally low but could become stringent very abruptly: It’s a country of contradictions. You’re told ‘It’s that way’ but everyone does what they want, they let it go . . . then, all of a sudden, boom, punishment falls, and then they let it go again. (5) Sometimes, authorities applied regulations very strictly, and other times quite loosely, turning a blind eye or considering a behaviour as ‘close enough’ to the rule (‘chabuduo’, which literally means ‘difference not much’ and is a popular expression capturing approximations and shortcuts).17 The interpreters explained that punishment rarely comes without warning. As I told her about the plane incident, Lǐ Nuan, a university employee, argued that the process leading to blacklisting for misbehaving was gradual: For such behaviours, it is very obvious to judge, it’s not as if you just got up from your seat on the plane and you were automatically punished. It’s not like this. It’s when you stand in the plane and they ask you several times to sit down, and then you attack flight attendants: those serious behaviours will be punished. (15) I witnessed such pragmatic application of rules myself as I  travelled from the Turpan bus station through five check points on the road to reach a touristic Uyghur village 40 kilometres from Turpan (access to Uyghur villages was restricted and I settled for the only one that was allowed). At one of the checkpoints, a police agent told me that he did not quite understand the information on my passport and asked me to fill in the security register myself. He may not have been familiar with Western passports; in comparison, the Chinese ID card is simpler to read. Thus, at that checkpoint, I got to fill in my information myself and could well have filled in erroneous information. I was experiencing a strong dissonance between the research and media articles I  had read on facial recognition, AI, and Big Brother  – all-encompassing surveillance on the one hand, and the smiling apologetic officer who was delegating me the check-up of my own identity instead of referring to his hierarchy to make sure the data entered on the registry was accurate. The same process unfolded two other times, at other checkpoints. If I was tensed at first, wondering if I would go through, I relaxed after a few of those controls. Later that day, it was I who reassured an anxious hotel receptionist banging on my room door because she had misread my visa expiration date and thought it expired; I showed her how to read the date so she could see for herself that my papers were in order.

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Rules and punishment as tools for moral progress The perplexing criticism of Chinese people ‘moral quality’

When I  asked participants why they thought rules and punishment were needed in China, they made quite harsh statements implying that they judged their fellow citizens as intrinsically inclined to serve their own interests rather than follow rules for the common good: I also drive very fast once I  have passed the cameras. It’s the nature of ­ hinese people. We have an old saying: Chinese people prefer to get C advantages for a cheap price. (23) China cares too much about economic gains, not rules. We left not so good impressions [in the eyes of other countries]. But things are improving. (10) More specifically, many participants discussed the lack of moral quality of Chinese people. For instance, Wang Lan, the dormitory aunt, equated following rules with moral quality: If you break the law, you can cause an accident, it’s a matter of safety, it’s not like rules in dormitories at the university. Some people cross at the red light very often, they don’t care about rules, they have no moral quality. (45) They explained this presumed lack of moral quality by low education levels and made explicit comparisons with the West, Japan, and South Korea, viewing their fellow citizens as holding lesser moral quality: Liao Bojing:

Normal people don’t know the traffic; traffic education is needed. People who drive are trained because they need a license but people who walk are not. Researcher [perplexed]: Are you saying people crossing the street do not understand the green and red lights? Liao Bojing: Not everybody can follow the rules and behave as if they had moral quality. The Japanese have higher moral quality, the Chinese should learn from them. It should start with small things, like not throwing the garbage anywhere, consider the bigger environment, build a better country. (34) Chinese people think rules are made to be broken. They think ‘rules are for other people, not me’. They should learn from the West, Japan, Canada, Australia, America, there they obey the rules very strictly. In China

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we have big roads with five, six lanes and we still have traffic jams because of traffic disorder. I worry about that [people not obeying rules] more than about the technology. (10) Rén Xian, a university employee, also used very normative language as she commented that travels and greater exposure to other cultures were improving Chinese behaviours: Rén Xian:

I like to travel and go to other countries. I have witnessed in the last few years the progress of our people’s behaviours. We usually have poor performance in self-restriction, people will violate public interest. But as more people get out of China and information is coming back, people are becoming better, we know how to self-behave and respect the public interest. This is a great improvement. Another example is the bathroom, I see people waiting in line, this is a very good sign. Also, Chinese people used to be criticized for speaking very loudly in public spaces, but now, South Korean and people in Taiwan are the worst. Researcher: So, people are becoming better because they travel abroad? Rén Xian: Yes. Now China has developed into a stage where the material needs are not the priority, we are more focused on the spiritual things [note the reference to the official discourse on spiritual civilisation, as we saw in Chapter 2], so all kinds of information, from the internet, from people traveling abroad, has helped our people realise that some of our deeds from the past were not good, and made us better in our behaviours. (13) The moral education discourse is pervasive in China. Sinologists trace the appearance of ‘moral quality’ as a central construct in policy narratives and everyday speech to the late 1980s.18 Moral quality refers to innate moral character reflected in manners, self-discipline, lifestyle, and education; it ranges from noble behaviours such as a soldier showing valour on the battlefield to everyday mundane behaviours such as how people dispose of the garbage or behave on the subway or the elevator. Other important keywords in the official moral quality narrative include popular mores (minfeng) and awareness of the law (falu yishi).19 The objective of cultivating a ‘high-quality citizenry’20 is achieved through educational means as well as provincial and municipal regulations on promoting civilised behaviours.21 Moral norms have been at the core of the CPC’s educational campaigns and have driven educational reforms starting in the mid-1990s.22 The moral quality narrative functions on both the individual and the population levels: improving the moral quality of the entire population is framed as essential for China’s social and economic development.

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Justifying rules by likening people to children

Rules, fines, and systems such as the blacklists were needed because people and businesses were deemed inherently ‘selfish’: the government had to curb the pursuit of profits. In sum, many participants adhered to the social governance narrative underpinning the social credit system: the idea that economic and interpersonal relationships in China are undermined by a generalised lack of trust, which the social credit system remedies. For example, surveillance at work was needed because employees may be lazy: We have cameras in offices, because maybe the workers try not to do the work. (8) Rules were also framed as a solution to corruption; as hotel manager Hsieh Xiaobo explains: Hsieh Xiaobo: Some people are selfish, they are working for the government, they control something, they want more money. For instance, in hotels and restaurants, they bribe. There are new policies to catch them. Researcher: Do you mean, the blacklist? Hsieh Xiaobo: Yes, the government receives a call, a letter, you can do that. I know people on the blacklist. (32) Yang Jie, an articulate doctoral student who invited me to lunch at his place, gave several examples of how the social credit system could help the government rule the country: People pay so much attention to material consumption, they want money, so restaurant use bad oils, terrible oils [to cook]. There is a trust problem. For my baby, I bought milk powder in Germany because I did not trust the Chinese one. We like this credit system to restrict businesses. We hear terrible news, schools that contract with cafeteria and they give bad food to children. The social credit system is quite helpful in that regard. (12) We have a serious pollution problem in Chengdu, so they set daily production limitations per factory. The little factories were abiding to the standards by day but overproducing at night when officials were resting . . . it’s very hard to rule a country, even a city. (12) Indeed, many food poisoning, drug counterfeiting, and environmental pollution scandals have shaken China, and fraud is a widespread issue, with offenders using fake identifications and moving to other provinces to escape

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pursuits.23 The ‘lack of trust’ narrative is widely shared by Chinese citizens, as documented by sinologist Genia Kostka: a 2018 survey found that 76 per cent of the respondents believed there was an issue of mutual mistrust between citizens in China.24 Her subsequent interviews revealed the ‘view that trust in society can only be ensured if social credit systems use more punitive mechanisms’.25 One of the interviewees in Kostka’s study viewed technology as a way to force citizens to obey (the choice of the words discipline, punishment, obedience, and warning in this excerpt is similar to those used by participants in my research): ‘Currently, most social credit systems rely on self-discipline, but people cannot be self-disciplined, and technology is needed for moderate regulation by punishing those who disobey, as a warning to others and for people to behave better’. Another interviewee in Kostka’s study was of the mind that people only follow rules when the disincentive to break them is large enough: ‘in the current mechanism the enforcement measures toward dishonourable actions is not enough. . . . People would calculate whether the cost of breaking trust is affordable or not’.26 The participants to this research viewed individuals and private businesses as driven by a selfish quest for profit. Therefore, the intervention of the government was necessary: Our government usually is more proactive [than companies] in its administration, like data security, national security. It’s riskier to let companies do these things. Companies seek profits. (25) These representations exist in other parts of the world. For instance, a classic Western management theory by Douglas McGregor distinguishes between those who believe employees will try to do as little as they can and therefore must be closely monitored (theory X) and those who hold that employees can be trusted and work well when they are autonomous and motivated (theory Y).27 Moreover, businesses in other countries are also denigrated as maximising profits at the expense of their employees and of the common good. However, what was different in the participants’ discourse was the implicit perception that people were like children and therefore should be treated as children. Yáng You, one of the interpreters, explained that there is a widespread belief in China that children intrinsically tend to behave badly and therefore need to be educated, ‘made into good persons’. This view of children as intrinsically prone to misbehave was extended to adults. Quite a few participants were of the mind that people are impulsive, that they do not think before they act, or that they do not have enough self-control to manage themselves. Several participants admitted that they sometimes were impulsive themselves or that their family members could be: [Discussing cameras] It’s good, for yourself and others. It’s safer. I  have been fined twice because I violated the rules, I was driving too fast. (36)

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Han Dongmei: It’s a big city here, there are new people all the time, nobody cares, people don’t know to follow the rules. Researcher: I  see. Yet it’s not very hard to understand, that you must cross the street when the light is green and not when it is red? Han Dongmei: But people do cross at the red light, my mom does. That would be unbelievable in Germany. (49) The ideas that rules and punishments are a substitute for autonomous adult behaviour and that people cannot take care of themselves are developed by Du Jianyu, an elegant compliance manager in a multinational company, who was in her thirties: Du Jianyu: It’s a big topic . . . for less developed markets, more cameras and more rules are good; for developed markets you don’t need so many cameras and rules, to save resources. If one day people are so developed that they can manage themselves, of course we can save resources. One day, maybe. Researcher: What do you mean with ‘developed’? Du Jianyu: I mean the economy, the culture, the education. Only a small group is educated, there is still a huge group that does not have good opportunities to get good education. The government is working hard to build schools in poor areas, to force people to go to schools, that is a first step, but they don’t have hospitals, railway, or houses. (30) Tiago, an entrepreneur who had lived in Shanghai for many years, corroborated what I  viewed as infantilisation. He drew my attention to the videos played in the subway and in planes, which are designed as cartoons, often featuring stuffed animals as characters. I had noticed them indeed, for instance, on Air China when the safety video featured a giant panda as a passenger. I had even taken a picture of that panda passenger for my children. I had also filmed a couple subway videos because they looked peculiar to me, although I had not put my finger on why that was before Tiago explained the popularity of an infantile graphical universe in China. He pointed out, for instance, the cartoon-like icons chosen by WeChat (two green bubbles with eyes), the online retail platform JD.com (a dog with a red collar), and other popular brands. And indeed, the simple images and language used in posters and videos in the subway, who taught about waiting in line before entering in a subway car, or letting people out before entering, reminded me of the friendly yellow rabbit of my childhood in the subway of Paris, who taught children to remove their hands before doors of the car closed. However, that rabbit had been created for small children, with posters pasted on subway car doors at their eyes’ height; by contrast, the posters and videos in the Beijing, Chengdu, and Shanghai subways were intended to educate grown-ups.

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Shaming as a tool for moral education and civilisation

Participants who framed people as immature and not able to behave well on their own viewed cameras, the social credit system, and punishment as learning tools: receiving a fine after speeding while driving, seeing one’s picture displayed on the street after jaywalking, and having one’s score decreased served as messages teaching a lesson and showing what was prescribed. If you had been impulsive or influenced by others, punishment acted as an educational tool to inform you that your behaviour was reprehensible, much as you would present a child with a consequence so they can recognise the rule and learn from their mistake: The fine is 20 kuai [20 renminbi, which is about 3 US dollars], it’s a small amount but they take a high – quality picture so other people will know that. [She laughs]. They send the picture by mail, so you know you did a bad thing. Sometimes they will post it online, it’s very rare but it can have some effect on behaviours. On TV shows, they choose random pictures to show the bad behaviours. (20) Now, if people know what kind of behaviours or actions is not good, will be punished, or scrutinized by the government, they will [brief silence] as individuals they should avoid these actions and that will be good for the whole society. (25) Hsieh Xiaobo: It’s a good way to check: if I know I am being monitored, every day I tell myself I have to be happy, it’s a good way to try. Researcher: Would people object to having their score decreased? Hsieh Xiaobo: No, they want to be notified that what they did is a bad thing. Some people are influenced by others, they are not too independent. Researcher: Is this a good way to improve people, do you think? Hsieh Xiaobo: Yes. You will think about life, you’ll recognize that it can get you into trouble, you will learn self-management and make sure it does not happen again. (32) As the fear of social judgement is ubiquitous in Chinese society,28 shaming was seen as an efficient punishing mechanism. In the participants’ words, ‘showing people’s face’ induced compliance: [Discussing people who have their picture shown when jaywalking] It’s a little bit terrible, if my face is there and others see it, I lose my face. (49) If my face turns up on the screen, I’ll be very uncomfortable and I  will learn my lesson, I will learn that I should behave. (51)

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The internet is powerful. If your name is in the blacklist, many people will see it, my family and friends. I’d want to disappear immediately. (31) Moreover, there was general support for using social shaming as a dissuasive mechanism: Researcher: This is embarrassing for people, isn’t it? Ding Thao: That’s good. If someone deserves to be posted on TV, it’s a better way to punish them than just give them a fine. It will have a stronger effect, it’s better than just explaining the rule or giving a fine. (36) Researcher: With the social credit system, people’s face may suffer? Hong Tao: Absolutely. From the perspective of social efficiency, it’s a good way to punish those who violate the standards. It’s a cost to them, it forces them to behave according to regulations. (42) Xu Chonglin, an IT support employee who sported a hacker’s look and was so knowledgeable about black hackers, red hackers (those who alert organisations on their weak spots), and white hats (hired by organisations to protect them) that I wondered if he himself was a hacker, pinpointed the moral aspect of social shaming as a punishment: Xu Chonglin: Researcher: Xu Chonglin:

From the moral perspective, as an individual, I  totally understand and approve this method. Some people say it’s a strong method, it can cause embarrassment. Embarrassment is normal. The method aims to induce shame, that’s the intention. For safety we must [do that]. If we don’t have rules, things will go wrong. (43)

This moral function was not only construed as moulding behaviour; some participants viewed cameras as learning tools that would lead to the interiorization of rules and morals: Behaviours are what we are used to do. If we behave well with cameras, then we will behave well without cameras. (30) This system can promote the improvement of human moral quality, it will help people to obey plans and regulations. (45) [Discussing people who have their picture shown when jaywalking] It’s really good to post the picture, technology should encourage people to manage themselves. If nobody violates the rules, this won’t happen, people

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will improve their moral quality. So, there won’t be pictures shown on TV anymore, it won’t be a problem. (36) These views resonate with the educational role conferred to Emperors by Confucianism. Emperors were expected to educate their subjects morally, by teaching them how to observe the traditional rites.29 Their authority was based on a ‘shamanic’ view of power (they were the ‘sons of heaven’ and the only persons on Earth who could communicate with heaven) as well as a duty to ‘civilise’ and ‘nurture’ their people.30 Their mission was to maintain the balance between the natural and social orders. Therefore, individual morals were closely associated with social obligations, and the Chinese word for politics, zhengzhi, is written with ideograms meaning rectify, punish, and heal, without the Greek reference to the city state (polis).31 Thus, participants’ comments reflect a Confucian view of governance as role modelling of the quest for common good (junzi) by scholar– officials who are ‘men of good’, whereas uneducated people (xiaoren, literally the small people) can only pursue their self-interest.32 In recent history, ‘citizen cultivation’ campaigns to educate ‘China’s backward masses into a scientifically normalised, modern society fitting of a global power’ were deployed, up to the New Era Civilized Practices campaign launched in 2018.33 At the same time, however, the constant reference to rules and punishment resort to another view of governance that is distinct from the Confucian and also has ancient historical roots, the legalist–legist (fajia) tradition. This other tradition was Mao Zedong’s main approach and has picked up considerably under Xi Jinping’s governance.34 As pointed out by sinologist Séverine Arsène, the social credit system appeals to both the Confucian and Taoist moral notions of integrity and reputation, and the pragmatic legalist–legist notion that individuals act not according to morals but following rational appraisals of rewards and punishments.35 Moreover, rules, monitoring, and punishment were associated with ideas of progress and civilisation; as such, they were held up as a protection against chaos and disorder. The civilisation (wenming) narrative, which I will detail in Chapter  4, is closely related to the moral quality narrative. The terms civilised and uncivilised are widely used in China. Many hold the belief that Western societies are currently more civilised than China,36 although an alternative narrative in recent years seems to emphasise a difference in essence between Western and Chinese civilisations.37 Several participants argued that Western societies could function with less monitoring and punishment because citizens had greater intrinsic morality: In the West, they don’t like to live and work under cameras. It’s the education, what they accept, that’s because they have higher moral quality. (29)

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Implementation is not strict, there are gaps, opportunities. We have rules, people don’t listen. In the US, the FDA is strict but here, we have low education and different parts of country are unbalanced. People violate rules. The social credit system can help. (12) The direct connection between compliance to rules, economic development, and progress (i.e. the Chinese dream) is well reflected in the following excerpts by the taxi driver Kuo Uchi and the community centre manager Li Tao: You should behave well, at first. You must obey . . . Chinese people, we must do everything well, because you can influence yourself and others, this leads to a better China. (46) In Shanghai, people follow the rules, most of the moral rules, most of the time they want to do the good thing. Morality is higher because education starts at age seven. In other parts of China, the development is fast, and morals are improving fast. (20) Likewise, the direct link between monitoring and safety is clearly expressed by the compliance manager Du Jianyu: CCTV means safety, it means I can work very late. For most people, the common people who don’t do bad things, more cameras build up a safe environment. Now cameras are very clear: one of my friends received a bill from police station that told him ‘you did not follow the rules when crossing the road, you get a 200 RMB fine’ [about 30 US dollars]. It’s a tool for us to force everybody to follow the rules, to protect ourselves. (30) The idea that rules, enforced by cameras, facial recognition, and artificial intelligence, can offer a protection resonates with Jean-Pierre Cabestan’s analysis when he argues that the social credit system is perceived as reassuring by credit companies, obviously, but also by consumers and parents. As he puts it, the need for safety and predictability is an obsession in Chinese civil society and is greater, for many people, than the need for individual freedom and privacy.38 The civilising power of technology-enforced rules

To conclude this chapter, I present a final excerpt in which the import–export manager Peng Shu beautifully combines the ideas of (a) the lack of discipline of the Chinese people compared with the West, (b) technology-enforced rules as a protection, and (c) monitoring as a way to pursue necessary moral progress: Peng Shu:

When I returned after a business trip in United Kingdom, I saw the traffic, people not following rules, taxi drivers cutting lanes

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without even looking. So, I thought, the cameras will prevent accidents, they will protect us. On the train I  saw a woman taking two seats and refusing to give one back. All these people refuse, they do what they want, this is one of the reasons why there is a social credit system. You would think this passenger should respect the rules, it’s not a problem. . . . I see the stops signs here [in Canada] and there are no traffic lights, everyone waits for their turn. In Canada, there are rules. In China, people always try to cross, there are many accidents. Researcher: Is this because China has developed very fast? Peng Shu: The system is flexible, less strict than here. If you break the rules, you can find ways to escape, people are less disciplined in China. (51) A 2022 study on 1,173 respondents representative of the national population found that concerns with ‘citizens’ inferior suzhi’ were strongly associated with support for the social credit system and punishment.39 I  consider the lack of moral quality narrative to be one of the mechanisms that explain this relationship: it is one of three core moral shortcomings narratives that set the table for the framing of surveillance as a solution on the path to achieve the Chinese Dream. As noted by Chenchen Zhang, the social credit system is pursuing the dream of a ‘homo moralis’, both on contractual grounds (compliance with legal obligations) and on ‘socialist–traditional’ grounds infused with Confucian virtues such as filial piety and Maoist virtues such as selfsacrifice.40 The 2014–2020 plan outlining the social credit system devotes an entire paragraph to explaining that the social credit system will strengthen citizens’ credit education and culture as important vectors of self-discipline and morality. The plan further contends that building up citizens’ moral quality is an important component of the establishment of the fundamental socialist values.41 In line with the lack of moral quality narrative, the Credit China website publishes numerous stories of debtors coming to terms with their duties after being blacklisted; these stories emphasise how the integrity of individual citizens enables a country’s rise, in the Taoist tradition that argues that integrity is the foundation of a person and of a society’s place in the world.42 *** In this chapter, I have analysed the ‘moral quality’ narrative as a source of support for digital surveillance. This narrative emerged from the interview data although I had no question regarding rules and even less so, ‘moral quality’. I have shown how participants to this research echoed official discourse regarding low moral quality in China and punishment as an efficient way to promote education and moral progress. Such a framing of surveillance as rule enforcement lays the ground for viewing it as an indispensable solution.

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The participants’ main concern was not that they were being monitored or the existence of blacklists; it was the opacity and fluctuating application of rules and punishment, which undermined their control over how to stay out of trouble. Let us now examine the second moral shortcoming narrative, the ‘national humiliations’ narrative, which nurtures the quest to revive China. Notes 1 Kai Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State (New York: Custom House, 2020); Xinyuan Wang, “China’s Social Credit System: The Chinese Citizens’ Perspective,” Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing Blog, December  9, 2019, https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/assa/2019/12/09/ chinas-social-credit-system-the-chinese-citizens-perspective/. 2 David A. Palmer and Fabian Winiger, “Neo-Socialist Governmentality: Managing Freedom in the People’s Republic of China,” Economy and Society 48, no. 4 (2019): 12. 3 Andrew B. Kipnis, “Subjectification and Education for Quality in China,” Economy and Society 40, no. 2 (2011). 4 Ibid. 5 Palmer and Winiger, “Neo-Socialist Governmentality.” 6 Alexander Trauth-Goik, “Civilized Cities or Social Credit? Overlap and Tension Between Emergent Governance Infrastructures in China,” Global Media and China 4 (2023). 7 Chenchen Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness: Technologies of Power and Subjectification in China’s Social Credit System,” Critical Asian Studies 52, no. 4 (2020). 8 Wang, “China’s Social Credit System.” 9 Sébastien Roussillat, Comment devenir aussi sage qu’un Chinois (Paris: L’iconoclaste, 2018). 10 Tiffany Li, Jill Bronfman, and Zhou Zhou, “Saving Face: Unfolding the Screen of Chinese Privacy Law,” Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2826087. 11 Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized. 12 Jean-François Billeter, Chine trois fois muette: Essai sur l’histoire contemporaine et la Chine (Paris: Editions Allia, 2016). 13 Katja Drinnhausen and Vincent Brussee, “China’s Social Credit System in 2021: From Fragmentation Towards Integration,” MERICS China Monitor (Mercator Institute for China Studies, 2021, https://merics.org/en/report/ chinas-social-credit-system-2021-fragmentation-towards-integration. 14 Mo Chen and Jens Grossklags, “Social Control in the Digital Transformation of Society: A Case Study of the Chinese Social Credit System,” Social Sciences 11, no. 6 (2022). 15 Alain Wang, Les Chinois (Paris: Tallandier, 2018). 16 Xin Dai, “Enforcing Law and Norms for Good Citizens: One View of China’s Social Credit System Project,” Development 63 (2020): 39, 42. 17 Ibid. 18 The development of the population’s moral quality was part of Deng Xiaoping’s call for the construction of a ‘spiritual civilisation’ able to balance the material civilisation and focus on self-interest fostered by the 1979 economic reforms. Following the Tiananmen student movement of 1989, ‘civilization offices’ were created across the nation, with the Propaganda Bureau setting criteria for ‘good

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morals, hygiene, management, culture, “political atmosphere” and so on’. The emphasis on a ‘spiritual civilisation’ led to the appearance of the motto ‘improve the quality of the population’ (‘tigao renmin de suzhi’) and to campaigns to promote ‘civility’ and ‘being civilised’ that began in the 2000s. See Kerry Brown and Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping,” Journal of Chinese Political Science 23, no. 3 (2018); Palmer and Winiger, “Neo-Socialist Governmentality”; Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness.” 19 Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness.” 20 Genia Kostka and Lukas Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship: Behavioral Responses to China’s Emerging Social Credit Systems,” Policy & Internet 12, no. 3 (2019). 21 Xin Dai, “Toward a Reputation State: The Social Credit System Project of China,” SSRN Research Papers, 2018, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3193577. 22 Kipnis, “Subjectification and Education for Quality in China.” 23 Wang, “China’s Social Credit System.” 24 Genia Kostka, “China’s Social Credit Systems and Public Opinion: Explaining High Levels of Approval,” New Media & Society 21, no. 7 (2019). 25 Kostka and Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship,” 22. 26 Ibid. 27 Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: McGraw Hill, 1960). 28 Chen and Grossklags, “Social Control in the Digital Transformation of Society.” 29 Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Demain la Chine: Démocratie ou Dictature? (Paris: Le Débat, Gallimard, 2018). 30 Stéphanie Balme, La tentation de la Chine: Nouvelles idées reçues sur un pays en mutation (Paris: Éditions Le Cavalier Bleu, 2013). 31 Ibid. 32 Cabestan, Demain la Chine. 33 Rui Hou and Diana Fu, “Sorting Citizens: Governing via China’s Social Credit System,” Governance 1, no. XXX (2022); citing Susan Greenhalgh, Cultivating Global Citizens: Population in the Rise of China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 37. 34 Cabestan, Demain la Chine; Balme, La tentation de la Chine; Julia P. Bayer, Valeria A. Vasilyeva, and Inna A. Vetrenko, “The Social Credit System of the People’s Republic of China Through the Eyes of Foreign Researchers,” Управленческое консультирование, no. 7 (2020). 35 Séverine Arsène, “Le système de crédit social en Chine,” Réseaux, no. 1 (2021). 36 Wang, “China’s Social Credit System.” 37 Angela Xiao Wu, “The Evolution of Regime Imaginaries on the Chinese Internet,” Journal of Political Ideologies 25, no. 2 (2020). 38 Cabestan, Demain la Chine. 39 Chuncheng Liu, “Who Supports Expanding Surveillance? Exploring Public Opinion of Chinese Social Credit Systems,” International Sociology 37, no. 3 (2022). 40 Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness.” 41 Arsène, “Le système de crédit social en Chine.” 42 Ibid.

4 NATIONAL HUMILIATIONS AND THE CIVILISATION DREAM

China is the safest country in the world. I think there is a good part of our population that is as good as Western people.

While the first of the three moral shortcomings narratives that underpinned participants’ surveillance imaginaries was the lack of ‘moral quality’ in China, the second such narrative was the shame of past national humiliations and the fears of being attacked. This chapter unpacks this narrative and explains how it, too, produced shame and anguish and cast favourable light on digital surveillance. Participants brought up this narrative spontaneously when discussing technology in China, and therefore I view the shame and the fears they expressed as foils that propelled them towards dreams of progress and of revival of the past glory of the Chinese civilisation. The previous two excerpts illustrate a striking dialectics. On the one hand, most participants were patriotic and expressed great pride in China; they were eager to demonstrate China’s achievements to the foreigner that I was, and they did so with conviction and palpable longing. On the other hand, they kept depreciating China, uttering harsh comments on their deficit of civilisation and making upward comparisons with ‘the West’, which was both looked up to and resented. These mixed narratives of shame and pride responded to one another. The shame of history and the fears of being attacked both internally and externally acted as powerful deterrents: participants intensely wanted to avoid

DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-7

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further humiliations, attacks, and national shame. Pride in China’s contemporary achievements and hope in a promised trajectory to restore the country operated as a symbolic protection from these anguishing narratives. In turn, these redeeming narratives set the table for digital surveillance to be seen as useful (on an abstract level when it applies to others) in the pursuit of the Chinese.1 This chapter begins with detailing the pride and shame that characterise the participants’ narratives regarding China and the West. It then discusses the resulting combination of attraction and repulsion towards waiguoren– foreigners. Third, it analyses narratives regarding the Chinese dream and its components: longing for the recognition of China as a great modern civilised country, and perceptions of economic development and public safety as constituting moral progress.

Saving China’s national face: the dialectics of pride and shame The national humiliations narrative

As I explained beforehand, the interview questions pertained mostly to social media, cameras, and the social credit system. Very soon, however, participants took me to another terrain, with vivid comments on their country. The themes of invasions by foreigners and of lagging behind ‘the West’, economically and politically, were repeatedly brought up, especially by the most educated participants at the master’s and PhD levels: Since 1840, people were not optimistic, as we were invaded by other powers. At that time, we were so disappointed by our own culture. (12) Many countries have conquered us, that part is being taught, streets are named after heroes. The invasion by the French and the British is very salient for us. We have the national disaster day to commemorate the Nanjing events when 300 000 were killed by the Japanese. (52) China suffered a lot during World War 2, and the U.S. gained. (19) One comment, in particular, bewildered me. Rén Xian, a university employee, pointed out derogatory Western stereotypes about China and insisted that China had changed and deserved new consideration. She seemed to want to repair the image of China in the eyes of a Westerner. What struck me most was the way she used ‘Western people’ as a reference point and a gauge for civilisation (whereas she could have turned to the ancient Chinese culture),

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and even as she was speaking up for China, only claimed that ‘a good part of our population’ was ‘as good as Western people’: I sincerely hope that our West friends can learn more about China. I have witnessed so many foreigners misunderstand China. They will think that Chinese people are uncivilised or uneducated. But I think there is a good part of our population that is as good as Western people. So, I hope our friends from the West can come to China and look for themselves: it’s not like in the movies, the old news. They are many foreigners who don’t know China. They believe that China is still very undeveloped, they are surprised to find China has TVs and mobile payments. I really wish they come to China because China is a very safe country. They are sticking to the old stereotype image of China but now China has undergone a deep change, China is a different country now. (13) Her discourse reflects what sinologists call ‘the national humiliations narrative’. As international relations professor Zheng Wang explains in Never Forget National Humiliation, national memory must be distinguished from national history: the national humiliations narrative is a selective and strategically crafted version of history that is largely taught in schools and has been made national memory. It has become an entrenched part of the contemporary Chinese identity.2 Specifically, every child learns about the century of humiliation (bainian guochi). Roughly summarised, the century of humiliations begins with China’s defeats to Western foreign powers in the Opium Wars (1840–1842 and 1856–1860). These wars led to the Treaty of Nanjing (1842) conceding Hong Kong to Great Britain and opening five ports to Western powers for trade, to the unequal treaties (1858–1860) by which China agreed to pay reparations and cede land to Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, and the United States, and to the looting and destruction of the old Summer Palace in Beijing (1860).3 Then came the Sino–Japanese War (1894–1895), at the end of which China lost Formose (Taiwan) to Japan, and the Boxer Protocol (1901) extending foreign powers’ grasp on China and imposing huge indemnities. These were the times when the disparaging representation of China as ‘The Sick Man of East Asia’ emerged.4 The wars brought the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, as well as additional wars with Japan, who imposed its ‘Twenty-One demands’ on China on May  9, 1915  – a day that was called ‘national humiliation day’ between 1927 and 1940, and a treaty that spurred Chinese nationalism.5 These decades were also characterised by two invasions by Japan (1931–1932 and 1937–1945), the rule of the warlords and civil war between the nationalist party, the Guomindang, and the communist party, the Gongchandang.6

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This century of humiliations ended with the expulsion of Japan from China in 1945 at the end of World War II.7 Zheng Wang studied school textbooks and visited many primary schools and the numerous memorial sites and museums dedicated to engraving these humiliations in Chinese identity – for instance, the Shenyang September 18 (1931) historical museum and the Nanjing massacre (1937) Memorial Hall. He documented the systematic dissemination of the national humiliations’ narrative through education, media campaigns, and ‘red tourism’. To this day, many TV programmes show Japanese soldiers committing atrocities against brave Chinese civilians and soldiers.8 I experienced it first-hand, stumbling upon these programmes every three or four TV channels I checked. On September 18, 2019, I was at my desk on the campus of a University in Chengdu, Sichuan, when I was startled by the alarming sound of air defence sirens. My host immediately messaged me on WeChat to let me know that this was not a bombing alert and that we were safe. She explained it was the commemoration of the September 18, 1931, attack of China by Japanese forces. Similar alarms can be heard every September 18 in many Chinese cities. The discourse emphasising past humiliations and presenting China as a victim is not new; historians have traced it, at least, to the Qing Empress Dowager, and Mao Zedong also used it at times.9 It has, however, been the dominant historical education and social narrative after the repression of the Tiananmen protests in 1989. Several sinologists consider this shift to be a deliberate way to turn the popular sentiment of the post-Tiananmen generations toward anti-Western nationalism and direct their attention outwards rather than inwards, to reduce scrutiny of the Party.10 Sustained narrations of shame and trauma have thus crystalised in ‘victimhood nationalism’.11 In light of the ‘Three Beliefs Crises’ of faith in socialism, Marxism, and the party in the 1980s, of the demise of the USSR, and of the 1989 pro-democratic Tiananmen protests, the Party turned to grounding its legitimacy on a narrative of historical sacrifices and contributions to China’s national dignity, positioning itself as the vanguard of the patriots more than of the working class.12 From a sociological perspective, it is fascinating to consider that the construct of face, which in Western sociology is mostly analysed at the individual level (in the seminal work of Ervin Goffman for instance), has been transposed in China at the country level, to the extent that sinologists discuss ‘national face’.13 The other side of the national humiliations’ narrative is the glorification of China’s ancient civilisation, in what Kai Strittmatter, a long-time China correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, calls the ‘mantra of 5000 years of Chinese history’ (the duration of which historians consider inflated). In this rhetoric, China is also called Zhonghua, as Chinese people used to call themselves Hua (literally: splendid, prosperous) by contrast with cultural or ethnic outsiders who were called Yi (usually translated as Barbarians).14 There is

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great emphasis and even a fever, in schools, communities, and tourist sites, for learning national traditions (guoxue), including classical Chinese literature, medicine, martial arts, qigong, and other ancient ways.15 For instance, I repeatedly observed Chinese tourists patiently watching long videos on pottery making or basket weaving, and water calligraphy has become a popular art among older people in public parks.16 This other side of the narrative boasts China’s four great inventions (paper, printing, gunpowder, and compass) and claims various achievements such as the domestication of dogs and the invention of football and golf. The assertion that China is the only country that has 5,000 years of continuous civilisation promotes the uniqueness of the Chinese social mores and aims to refute the notion that China is underdeveloped.17 The word aiguo, that is, patriotism, or literally ‘love of the country’, has become central in Xi Jinping’s rhetoric’s and is associated with ideas of a unique and proud nation.18 The patriotic narrative romanticises ancient China, depicting trade on the Silk Roads as a time of international peace and prosperity and painting China as ‘having been a glorious, magnanimous civilisation that was abruptly “shut down and took on a conservative nature” as a result of European aggression and colonization’.19 As Zheng Wang explains, the memory of the past glory of the Chinese Empire and the recent economic and political successes of China do not wipe out the sense of past humiliations. In his view, the current Chinese nationalism rests on a ‘myth–trauma complex’: rather than feeling assuaged by the rise of China, Chinese people view the current status of China as a return to prior greatness, which activates their memory of the humiliations: ‘Today, the Chinese are even more sensitive about other countries’ attitudes towards China and whether China receives good treatment with proper status’.20 In fact, the constant drilling of the memory of national humiliations nourishes a form of inferiority complex that Zheng Wang calls ‘a culture of insecurity’.21 Jean-François Billeter uses even starker language, calling it a ‘civilisation complex’.22 He notes that China’s economic underdevelopment has led intellectual and governance circles to question whether China was able to progress and make up for the gap. In his view, framing the Chinese culture as different and unique is not always favourable to China as it raises the issue of the value of this culture and of its compatibility with modern civilisation. Other sinologists have discussed this inferiority complex; for instance, Jean-Pierre Cabestan observes that a group of ‘neo-authoritarian’ and ‘neo-conservative’ thinkers such as Xiao Gongqin from the Shanghai Normal University deem Chinese people’s moral quality as insufficient; they argue that China is not ready for democracy because of this lack of moral quality.23 The discourse of falling behind and being humiliated again by foreign powers were very salient fears for participants to this research. In the following except, the use of the word ‘attack’ in relation to human rights critics

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about China, followed by an immediate defence of China, is a vivid example of the victimisation narrative: We have human rights attacks from the West – but other countries also monitor their citizens; people are also selfish in other countries. (12) The participants often discussed these fears in the same sentence, or group of sentences, where they evoked economic development, safety progress, national security, and governmental actions. For instance, Yang You, one of the interpreters, approved of the surveillance through cameras and justified it by the necessity to be strong and prevent invasions: They [the government] monitor, but they do good things. If China is not strong, we will be invaded, so they need to do that. (52) These fears made the research participants very ambivalent towards ‘the West’. Looking up to Western foreigners and resenting them

My foreigner identity was the first that Chinese people saw in me, and it clearly fostered curiosity and attraction. For instance, in the Gansu Province I took a bus from Zhangye to the Daxia colourful hills. These hills are famous because they are described in the classic Journey to the West, in which the monk Tang Sanzang travels to India to bring back Buddhist sutras to China. On the bus, I met a retired bank manager who was also a skilled photographer. We visited the park together and he invited me to lunch. I later saw on WeChat that he was boasting to have met an ‘exotic’ person that day. As another example of how my foreigner identity enabled encounters, a Buddhist priest hailed me over as I was crossing a temple square of Mount Emei, a sacred mountain of Sichuan. There were many people in that temple towards the end of the day, as the area is popular with Chengdu residents and beyond. Yet he singled me out, invited me to sit down for a talk despite my poor Mandarin, and insisted we share dinner. Attraction to foreigners was also a salient theme in the research interviews. Several participants mentioned that they shopped online on sites dedicated to Western luxury brands. They are even platforms dedicated to group purchases of these brands with agents specialised in dealing with custom clearance. The fascination for Western brands extends to daily objects, and people who travel to Western countries are often expected to bring back gifts. In addition, having Westerners friends can be perceived as a social status booster; some people I met fleetingly during my travels invited me to connect on WeChat and I suspect I was sort of a ‘trophy connection’. Xiaohan Feng,

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a human resources director, was very careful as she scrutinised connections requests on LinkedIn because some fraudsters used that attraction to their benefit: Most people like foreign White handsome persons, what can I say. They release their emails, their connections, and they get cheated. (9) On the other hand, many Chinese people also express a certain repulsion towards citizens of Western countries that have humiliated China and towards Japan (the matter differs for developing countries with which China claims to share the experience of having been colonialised). In his book, Zheng Wang documents the many historical instances in which China’s strong sense of victimhood and suspicion about foreign conspiracies led citizens to believe Western countries were intentionally attacking or not taking China seriously. He also explains that Western protests concerning human rights, for instance, those that accompanied the 2008 Olympic torch relay, were perceived as rude and disrespectful.24 The incidents in which Chinese tourists are cheated upon or robbed while visiting a foreign country are often framed through the lens of racism, and the government of China issued warnings for citizens and students about racism in Australia in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak.25 In the same vein, sociologist Jean-Louis Rocca observes that his Chinese colleagues and friends often express anger at the way in which, in their view, Western media always pick an interest for aspects of the Chinese society that are pejorative.26 The media frenzy regarding the social credit system, which was at first erroneously depicted as an already centralised and all-encompassing ‘Big Brother’ system, is a good example of such depictions of China. The other component of rejection of the West is the ideas, promoted by the government, that Western values endanger the traditional Chinese culture, and that the West has set out to sabotage the rise of China.27 China’s trust in Western powers was already thin after the Opium Wars and subsequent unequal treaties. Then, at the end of the World War I, the German-held concessions in Shandong were not returned to China in exchange for its engagement with the Allies; instead, they were handed over to Japan. The May 4, 1919, movement denounced the Versailles treaty as a betrayal and a sign that foreign powers were their values and international law to reinforce their own power.28 That argument became more salient with the explicit Western support for the Tiananmen protests; senior leaders of the CPC have deemed foreign powers’ intentions as ‘hostile’ and argued that the promotion of Western liberal values aims to Westernise, divide, and weaken China.29 The idea of a civilisational competition between the Western and Chinese civilisations has been gaining traction since.30 A recent study that analysed Weibo posts’ ‘regime imaginaries’, that is popular perceptions of the ruling state, identified

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a significant shift between 2011 and 2016: whereas discussions of liberal democracies’ values had been prevalent on Weibo in 2011, they were then absorbed by a nationalist imaginary viewing ‘domestic and international pressure for democratisation as a strategy to shame and destabilise China, curbing its phenomenal rise’.31 Of course, China does not have a monopoly on nationalist imaginaries, as both ‘the West’ and China produce convenient ‘othering’ narratives.32 New kinds of fears and embarrassment

Interestingly, participants were not just referring to aggressions by Western powers and Japan. Another component emerged: the shame regarding China’s ‘troubled past’ and in particular the Cultural Revolution. Several participants considered that the Cultural Revolution was a ‘bad’ history: I was born in 1976, I was lucky, we have a very bad history. The Cultural Revolution, the hunger times, these were dark times. My parents tell me we have a better life now than when China was founded [referring to the 1949 foundation of the People’s Republic of China]. (51) My mother went through wenhua dageming [the Great Cultural Revolution]. They [my parents] are afraid. (9) These particular historical times were associated with shame in a way that differed from the shame stemming from the foreign humiliations. That shame was tainted with embarrassment because it was imputable to the Chinese people and acknowledged as such: It is true that the Cultural Revolution, most I heard, it was not a strong experience. I have memory, we should remember the history. As Chinese people, it’s not a good thing for a country. I feel embarrassment to discuss it with others. Remembering history is necessary. It’s not a good history. (39) Another kind of fear strokes me as vivid and important to understand narratives on digital surveillance: the fear of being invaded or attacked by non-Han people, especially Muslims. As I visited the Mogao Caves of the Thousand Buddhas near Dunhuang in the Gansu Province, I watched an introductory movie about the Silk Roads and the building of the Caves. The city of Dunhuang was a frontier garrison outpost of the Han Emperor Wudi, established 111 bce, and an important gateway to the West. The movie insisted on the endemic instability of the Western regions of China during these times, on the raids of local populations against the Hans and Mongols, and on the

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many closures of the Silk Roads when traffic became too perilous. The movie then taunted the building of the Great Wall to protect Eastern and Central China against attacks from Muslim populations. It was a story of chaos that was only mastered when power was centralised. To these days, this story resonates vividly with the people I  spoke with. The retired bank manager who visited the Daxia colourful hills with me saw a picture I had posted on WeChat a week after our encounter. On this picture, I was sitting next to an Uyghur family in a village near Turpan, in the Xinjiang Province. He messaged me: ‘You’re brave to be associating with Hui [the Chinese name for Muslim]. We Chinese people are afraid of Hui’. Likewise, one of my hosts in China, a confident professor, was perplexed and somewhat impressed that I had travelled in Xinjiang by myself. She thought Xinjiang was ‘dangerous’. When she herself had to spend 3 days in Urumqi for work, she stayed the whole time hunkered down in her hotel, not daring to go outside and have dinner. Fear of attacks was a core reason why most research participants approved of controls and monitoring in China: The Uyghur . . . I understand it can be propaganda . . . my father was deported there in Xinjiang during the Cultural revolution, at that time they [the Uyghur people] were not forced to learn Mandarin, they shared the government. But later, there were terrorist attacks, and now it’s tougher. (51) In this dialectic of pride and shame, people evoked dreams that were the antithesis to their dreaded foils. Pride in China was both a remedy to and a rebuttal of foreign humiliations and attacks. In turn, this pride was the fuel that propelled the Chinese dream. The dreams

The pride that the participants expressed regarding their country resided in part in material benefits, that is, food on the table, better jobs, and personal safety. Yet this pride was also highly symbolic, as they viewed economic development in the recent decades as indicative of improving morality. In turn, greater morality was framed as central to the Chinese dream, and a path towards brighter horizons. The three main dreams that participants shared pertained to (a) China being recognised as a modern civilisation, (b) economic development, and (c) public safety. There were close ties, in participants’ trains of thoughts, between pride in China’s economic and political rise, the view that China was also catching up morally, and the longing to be recognised by the West as civilised and modern people. These dreams are well illustrated in the word cloud presented in Figure 4.1.

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FIGURE 4.1  Word

cloud on China and the civilisation dream, as rendered by NVivo 12

Longing for international moral recognition

The participants showed heightened sensitivity to Western perceptions, and a poignant aspiration that China be acknowledged as a great country, economically, technically, politically, and socially. This dream was, in my view, both a result of and a response to the foils they dreaded. The participants, as well as other Chinese citizens I met in my travels, tended to like or dislike foreign countries according to the political recognition these countries granted China: Chinese people don’t like Americans. It’s been like that for a long time. But they love France. France was one of the first countries to recognize China after World War II. (53)

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In line with official discourse on the rejuvenation (fuxing) of the country, there was a sense that China is gaining status and power on the international scene, as shown by the number of people outside China who are learning Mandarin. For instance, in an informal conversation with Qiu Chu Hua, a Mandarin teacher, I  asked if she could explain why a Taiwanese friend of mine chose to speak the mainland Mandarin (putonghua) with her children rather than Taiwanese Mandarin; she replied: Trump’s grand-daughters speak Mandarin, because their cleaning lady is Chinese. China likes that because, nowadays, China wants foreigners to speak Mandarin. The four dragons, you know, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, they had a good economy but now it slows down while China is still rising, so they want to speak Mandarin. (53) With the same breath, this person takes an example in which the Chinese character occupies a low-skilled job (the cleaning lady) and combines it with ideas of economic progress and growing cultural prestige. Her statement vividly expresses that thanks to economic development, the past humiliations can be washed away and the former invaders that considered themselves as superior now need to learn Mandarin. In other words, she viewed foreigners’ learning Mandarin as a symbolic token of China’s regained moral status. This view is in line with academic and diplomatic discourses that positions China as tianxia (literally, All-Under-Heaven), in which the world revolves around a China that has retrieved its former power.33 Along these lines, the new Road and Belt initiatives represent a revival of the ancient Silk Roads that witnessed China’s glorious civilisation, and a historical revenge.34 The longing for recognition beyond economic exchanges is also manifest in the following excerpt by Li Tao, a female community centre officer: China is still a developing country; there’s not only the economy but also the society: we want better relationships with other countries. (20) The reason why the participants were hopeful that China could be recognised politically, and not just economically, was the view that economic development was closely associated with moral development: it is this moral catching-up, they expressed, that would grant China the international status that it deserves. This reasoning is apparent in university employee Rén Xian’s argument, where she jumps from her observation of the more cultured behaviours of Chinese tourists abroad to reasons why the world should respect China: I have travelled and Western people were very friendly to me, it made me so happy. . . . Chinese tourists, abroad, now go to museums and see movies

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instead of shopping. It makes me proud for China that they are interested in culture, history. I  am aware that some people are afraid of a rising China but it’s a matter of balance. Because China is rising, both China and the world need to readjust to the new normal, China should respect the rest of the world and the rest of the world should respect China. (13) Economic development constitutes progress and a protection against ideology

Economic development was also part of the dream expressed by the participants. The idea of progress, in particular, was prominent in participants’ discourses. The timing of some interviews, in September 2019 just before the celebrations of the 70 years anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, may have increased the salience of the words such as ‘right path’ and ‘right direction’ in the interview data. The TV, social media, and newspapers were actively advertising the socio-economic progress made during these 70 years. More generally, the discourse of the Party emphasises the ideas of progress, development, and growth. Despite this cautionary note, I believe that these ideas are deeply rooted in contemporary China, in line with Chinese elites’ quest to modernise the country35 and what sinologist Anne Cheng analyses as a teleological view of history and governance, that is an emphasis put on goals and results.36 Progress, fast development, better lives, food, and education were very often mentioned during the interviews, although I never asked questions about the economy: And actually, even for the younger people, their attitude tends to be positive towards the . . . the . . . [hesitation] current government because they think they do the right things to make the country better, to develop fast, to make it flourish. (6) Some people viewed food and education as being enough, that is enough of a change compared with prior generations, and enough of a change compared with the poorest in the country. As a result, they expressed contentment with the improved livings standards: History is useful. China was built in 1949 [the year the People’s Republic of China was founded], people can see what we have now. (32) For us, the Chinese people, we can’t choose. We don’t get involved in politics. We want to enjoy life: my grandparents hadn’t enough food, now in the cities we are rich, that’s enough for us, and we want to educate our children well. In the countryside there are still people who don’t have enough to eat and children who can’t go to school. (53)

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The emphasis on wealth had already struck me, in the many Buddhist temples I visited along the Silk Road, as well as in Sichuan, Shanghai, and Beijing; the most attended altars, where the most food and money donations accumulated, were related to wealth. I remember pondering a maxim at the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi’an. It read: ‘A life that is stable and prosperous is necessarily happy’. I wondered whether there was a relationship between the emphasis on materiality – wealth, daily eating, and exercising practices – and a professed lack of involvement in abstract ideas and especially politics. For instance, participants explained that concerns for privacy and human rights would rise when the country had achieved greater economic development: for now, the country was still developing and the goal of rapid growth justified the means even if it meant sacrificing privacy. In the words of Cai Huang Fu, a male programmer in an electronic commerce start-up, and Yan Ah Lam, a female university professor: Cai Huang Fu: Big firms don’t have the barrier that Facebook and companies in the United States have. It saves Chinese companies money. Researcher: Which way do you think is best? Cai Huang Fu: It depends on the development of the country, it’s a balance. During the development phase of China, maybe the global privacy is not the most important thing. But when China grows faster and is more developed, the sense of personal privacy will grow. Right now, most people don’t care about these things. They care about money, and power. Personal privacy does not affect many people’s lives. (19)

Privacy is not huge priority in China, nor are public concerns. Economic growth, making life better are the priorities. We can just accept the system and hope that people who govern get better. (2) In the interviews, the dream of a positive trajectory of economic development was strongly connected to participants’ support of the Communist Party of China. This observation concurs with the analysis by anthropologist Yuxian Yan of how people conceive modernity in China ‘as the realization of three dreams: a strong state, a wealthy nation, and a prosperous i­ ndividual – exactly in that order’.37 In a classic subordination of the individual to the collective, economic development comes to be framed as the most important human right; this is the view institutionalised in the 2017 United Nations ­resolution ‘The Contribution of Development to the Enjoyment of All Human Rights’ championed by China.38

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On a long flight from Beijing to Montreal, I  chatted with a Shenzhen banker. He was on holidays, visiting his wife and young children whom he had settled on the island of Montreal. He was making good money in Shenzhen and was planning to retire within five years and join them. For now, he was visiting several times a year. He was very open about his strategy and offered the following analysis of the reasons why different social classes in the country supported the Chinese government: Most people don’t care about privacy because what matters is living standards and they are satisfied, and they don’t have much education. 99% of the people in China have never taken a plane or a train. The government is smart, they pay a lot of attention to low classes [sic]. People have been lifted out of poverty, so they support the government. A revolution by the masses is not likely. As for the upper classes who have the rare, good jobs, they also support the government because they view having these positions as coming from the government. However, the rich people, the ones who make good money like me, they send their family to the US or Canada to get better education and be safe. (18) Indeed, I met several other well-off educated persons who had sent their children to college in Australia, Canada, the United States, and Sweden. When I asked one of them, who was divorced and had no other child than his son now studying in Australia, if he wished that his son came back to China after graduation, he rejected the idea right away. He was of the mind that his son would have a better life in Australia, even if it meant he would not see him much. The fact that a number of citizens send their children, families, and money abroad, including the civil servants called naked officials (luogan) when they remain alone in China, seems to indicate that economic well-being is indeed a high priority, while support for the government might be essentially tactical.39 Zheng Wang, too, notes that the government uses trade surplus to ‘buy the loyalty of the intellectual and economic elites’.40 Indeed, a participant who had personally benefited from governmental allowances expressed support for the Party, even though the allowances constituted partial reparations for what their family suffered during the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural Revolution: Some people are in the Party because they want to change the country and the Party is the place to do that. I love my country too, China is my motherland, I can’t change my nationality. My family suffered a lot during the Cultural Revolution, they took our fields, my father could not study, and it destroyed him. But then the government gave me 10000 yuan [about 1600 USD] every year for my education, and to my sister too! They sent

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me to [anonymised] University in the US. It’s a paradox. They monitor, but they do good things. The direct association between economic progress and support for the CPC also transpires in Rén Xian’s statement, where she says that the Party would avoid engaging in armed conflicts because these might endanger the economy and, consequently, undermine support for the government: As normal people, the mass wants to keep our current life standards because we have worked very hard for our current economic situation, so even if there is a trend of extension to the world [she means a war triggered by China], the people will resist because we don’t want a decline of our living standards. . . . The government wants to improve people’s living standards. We are not going to conquer the world. (13) Her statement also reflects the recurrent argument in Xi Jinping and other Party officials’ discourse that China is a friendly (youshan) nation inherently avoiding conflict and searching for win–win relationships with other countries.41 Interestingly, some participants seemed to view economic development goals as a protection from the ideological and political turbulences that characterised China’s recent history. In other words, they were optimistic that history would not repeat itself, because the socio-economic context had improved. This observation resonates with the work of sinologist Stéphanie Balme, who argues that the middle-class’ widespread desire for material security, cocooning, and even luxury may act as an insurance mechanism against the return of ideologies, seen as bearing chaos and suffering. The close connection between economic development and moral progress is again expressed by Zhong Li, a female accountant in her fifties: Young people are less careful, they don’t care about what they post on WeChat. Researcher: What you just said reminds me of a young interviewee who had bought a book on holidays in Taiwan; she said her mother made her throw it away at the airport before they were flying back to China. Zhong Li: If I were her mother, I would have done the same. Researcher: Have the young people not learned the recent history, or have they forgotten about it? Zhong Li: I can’t say they do not focus on this, but it’s the past, for them. The things won’t be a cycle, it won’t be repeated. The situation at that time was related to ideology. We’re out of that situation now, the social context matters. (39) Zhong Li:

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Public safety constitutes civilisation

The third important component of the progress dream was public safety. Most participants compared the current situation with the prior decade and claimed that they felt a lot safer, thanks to cameras, in particular, regarding thefts, child kidnapping (a serious issue in China), and other crimes: Cameras make society friendlier, safer, with the 360 looking all around. Ten years ago, it was not safe in China, people were stealing wallets, phones. Cameras are a guarantee to avoid this. (32) It’s safer now. We used to have bicycles stolen in the residence garden, it must be safer now. . . . For public areas I support the idea of cameras more, because of safety. (49) Consequently, they unanimously welcomed the monitoring of public spaces by cameras with the idea that increased public safety was a step towards peace of mind and improved well-being (note the use of the ‘we’ pronoun in the first excerpt): The traffic light, the traffic cameras, if they catch a violation of public rules, you will be fined with a score. You will lose points on your driving score, which will prevent your driving in the future [she laughs]. In case of theft, we can pull the video from CCTV and see what has happened and use this footage to prevent future theft. I think cameras are very beneficial for public security. (13) CCTV on streets does not bother me that much, it’s safer, there’s more evidence for police if a crime happens. (24) The dream of a prosperous China thus extended to feeling protected in a society that was safer and more civilised. In Chapter  6, I  will further discuss the importance of protection by the government, as opposed to protection from the government, which has been a historical concern in the United States since European immigrants fled persecutions by monarchies. Many participants felt that safety was well worth overriding concerns about sharing personal information and being watched: Without cameras it would be worse, how would you catch a thief? They protect us, even though they reduce our privacy. (28) I’m fine with getting more cameras on the street, like for example in my street. I’m totally fine, it’s not in my house, it will record who knocks at my door at midnight, I will say yes to that. (6)

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Cameras contribute to decrease crime. It is to protect yourself. In the West, they promote freedom, well this depends on your definition of freedom: the cameras are not made to monitor you, just to protect you. Chinese people also like freedom, the two are not in conflict. We are more and more happy and have a safe life. (20) A 2021 report by the German Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) provides further support for the relationship between economic/technological development, public safety, and progress towards a morally superior civilisation. The report observed that technology-enabled surveillance is presented by the government as ‘modern’. It can be argued, in light of the national humiliations’ narrative, that such modernity makes up for past technological deficits, when China missed the second industrial revolution. Furthermore, the report notes that ‘modern’ also means a ‘superior alternative to “Western democracy” with its “outdated” checks and balances such as separation of powers and free media and focus on individual liberties’.42 A vivid example of such claim to moral superiority through technological governance is at work when China attributes its containment of COVID-19 to its data-driven governance system.43 *** This chapter has analysed how the civilisation dream acts as a symbolic protection from the shame and fears fuelled by the national humiliations’ narrative. Participants to this research expressed pride in China’s achievements. They longed for the recognition of China as a modern civilised country and viewed economic development and public safety as constituting moral progress. The moral undertones of the civilisation dream echo the discourses on moral quality and civilised behaviours discussed in Chapter 3. As we will see in the second part of the book, digital surveillance is cast as indispensable to repel dreaded national humiliations and restore China as the Middle Kingdom with its due place in the world. In the next chapter, I examine the third moral narrative that shapes participants’ surveillance imaginaries: the view of privacy as the concealment of shameful information and feelings, to save face and maintain moral and social respectability. Notes 1 Kerry Brown and Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping,” Journal of Chinese Political Science 23, no. 3 (2018). 2 Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). 3 Danielle Elisseeff, Histoire de la Chine: Les racines du présent (Paris: Les Editions du Rocher, 2003); Wang, Never Forget National Humiliations. 4 Wang, Never Forget National Humiliations.

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5 Ibid. 6 Elisseeff, Histoire de la Chine. 7 Jeremy Goldkorn, Anthony Tao, Lucas Niewenhuis, and Feng Jiayun, October 16, 2019, https://signal.supchina.com/why-chinese-people-dont-hate-their-govern ment/?sfns=mo. 8 Kai Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State (New York: Custom House, 2020). 9 Anna Hayes, “Interwoven ‘Destinies’: The Significance of Xinjiang to the China Dream, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Xi Jinping Legacy,” Journal of Contemporary China 29, no. 121 (2020). 10 Ibid; Wang, Never Forget National Humiliations. 11 Chenchen Zhang, “Contested Disaster Nationalism in the Digital Age: Emotional Registers and Geopolitical Imaginaries in COVID-19 Narratives on Chinese Social Media,” Review of International Studies 48 no. 2 (2022). 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Wang, Never Forget National Humiliations. 15 David A. Palmer, “Three Moral Codes and Microcivil Spheres in China,” in The Civil Sphere in East Asia, ed. Jeffrey C. Alexander, David A. Palmer, Sunwoong Park, and Agnes Shuk-mei Ku (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 16 Laura Vermeeren, “Evaporating Ennui – Water Calligraphy in Beijing,” July 14, 2017, https://chinacreative.humanities.uva.nl/evaporating-ennui-water-calligraphy-in-beijing/. 17 Brown and Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping.” 18 Ibid. 19 Hayes, “Interwoven ‘Destinies’,” 35. 20 An interview with Zheng Wang, https://cup.columbia.edu/author-interviews/wangnever-forget-national-humiliation. 21 Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation, 186. 22 Jean-François Billeter, Chine trois fois muette: Essai sur l’histoire contemporaine et la Chine (Paris: Editions Allia, 2016). 23 Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Demain la Chine: Démocratie ou Dictature? (Paris: Le Débat, Gallimard, 2018). 24 Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation. 25 “China Warns Students About Choosing Australia, Citing Racist Incidents,” Reuters, June  3, 2020, www.reuters.com/article/us-china-australia-education-idUSKBN 23G0NA. 26 Jean-Louis Rocca, “Crédit social. Spécificité chinoise ou processus de modernisation?” Sociétés politiques comparées 51 (2020). 27 Alain Wang, Les Chinois (Paris: Tallandier, 2018); Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized. 28 Rogier Creemers, “China’s Conception of Cyber Sovereignty: Rhetoric and Realization,” in Governing Cyberspace: Behavior, Power and Diplomacy, ed. Dennis Broeders and Bibi van den Berg (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020). 29 Ibid. 30 Chenchen Zhang, “Contested Disaster Nationalism in the Digital Age.” 31 Angela Xiao Wu, “The Evolution of Regime Imaginaries on the Chinese Internet,” Journal of Political Ideologies 25, no. 2 (2020): 152. 32 Chenchen Zhang, “Contested Disaster Nationalism in the Digital Age.” 33 Zhaoguang Ge, “L’Empire-Monde fantasmé,” in Anne Cheng, Penser en Chine (Paris: Folio Histoire Gallimard, 2021). 34 Cabestan, Demain la Chine. 35 Yunxian Yan, “The Chinese Path to Individualization,” The British Journal of Sociology 61, no. 3 (2010). 36 Anne Cheng, Penser en Chine (Paris: Gallimard Folio, 2021).

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37 Yan, “The Chinese Path to Individualization,” 507. 38 Gerlinde Groitl, “China’s Dream: Constructive Revisionism for Great Rejuvenation,” in Russia, China and the Revisionist Assault on the Western Liberal International Order (Cham: Palgrave Studies in International Relations, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). 39 Wang, Les Chinois. 40 Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation, 236. 41 Brown and Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping.” 42 Katja Drinnhausen and Vincent Brussee, “China’s Social Credit System in 2021: From Fragmentation Towards Integration,” in MERICS China Monitor (Mercator Institute for China Studies, 2021, 19, https://merics.org/en/report/ chinas-social-credit-system-2021-fragmentation-towards-integration. 43 Ibid.

5 SAVING FACE Privacy as hiding shameful information

If my body is straight, I won’t worry that my shadow is not straight.

This chapter examines the third narrative of moral shortcomings that emerged from participants’ discourse: this narrative pertained to privacy imaginaries, to paraphrase David Lyon’s surveillance imaginaries.1 Understanding privacy imaginaries is crucial to see how digital surveillance can be framed as exposing shameful behaviours and thereby opening up a path towards ‘civilisation’. WeChat users tend to care about privacy. Westerners who start using WeChat are often struck by the sophistication of its privacy settings, which are much more granular and easier to use than the privacy settings of, say, Facebook or Twitter.2 Many participants were well versed in ‘hybrid’ social media strategies in which users choose a specific audience for each content they post, rather than posting potentially inadequate information to the public or diverse groups of ‘friends’.3 They were also using temporal strategies unavailable on many Western social media, such as allowing contacts to see only their most recent 3 days or 6 months of activity.4 In an interview with Feng Xiaohan, a human resources director in her early forties, I mentioned several workplace gaffes typical of Facebook users, such as criticising one’s boss while forgetting they are a Facebook friend and therefore can see the post,5 or sharing too much personal information with coworkers and bosses. She was startled by the fact that adults would commit such crude gaffes. She proudly explained: ‘In China, most people have the common sense to know who to post to. On vacation, you should always block the boss!’ However, I was perplexed by how the participants delineated the issue as I probed what they considered as private. While they showed acute privacy DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-8

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concerns in certain contexts, they did not seem to worry about the traces they left as they shopped online, used electronic payments to ride bikes, buses, and taxis, eat at restaurants, book their travels, their shows, and everything else. I was also at a loss to understand some statements, such as several participants who narrated how they loved to ‘hide on Weibo’ – this made little sense to me because Weibo is a large public social media, akin to Twitter, and it has a real-name registration policy: people can use a pen name, however their real identity is easily traced back. All this perplexity originated in the fact that I  was defining privacy as Westerners do. As we saw in Chapter  1, most Westerners view privacy as the right to conceal their personal information. Even information that makes you look good, for instance, donations you make to charity, or trivial information such as what brand of cereals you eat in the morning, may be considered as private. Although some in the West claim that they have ‘nothing to hide’, many others consider that a great part of who they are and what they do, be it condemnable or not, is none of other people’s business. However, many of the participants to this research hold to the meaning of privacy as hiding a shameful secret (yīnsī), rather than a personal thing you do not wish to disclose in public (yǐnsī).6 The participants were first and foremost concerned about social judgement, and often passed judgement very quickly and in a Manichean mode (e.g. good vs. bad behaviour or person). Consequently, the scope of privacy was narrower in their eyes: they understood privacy as the concealment of shameful information and feelings to social groups that could judge them negatively, to save face and maintain moral and social respectability. Two important implications follow from this definition of privacy: (a) shameful information is the main or even only kind of information that needs to be hidden and (b) it only needs to be hidden from those who can make you lose face: this includes parents and supervisors, or hackers who would disclose personal information, but not an abstract entity such as the government. In this chapter, I will unpack how I came to this conclusion and analyse the participants’ perceptions of privacy, face saving, and social respectability. Privacy imaginaries A wide spectrum of views on privacy

A Western stereotype goes that many Chinese people simply do not care about privacy, because they live in a collectivist culture, and because of agrarian societal structures that have persisted until recently.7 In agrarian societies, whole families often share small housing spaces and the inhabitants of a village depend closely on one another to ensure the village’s crops and

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subsequent survival. A couple of participants brought up that stereotype. For instance, Hé Gang, a man in his mid-thirties who was an information systems architect at a Beijing start-up despite having only attended technical secondary school, contrasted China and the West in a dichotomic way: In the West, privacy is very valued, but not here. Chinese people focus on relationships; it’s not hard for them to let others know about them. It will not have serious consequences for them. In the West, people focus on individuals; relationships are less important. (37) However, Luó Wen, a female PhD student in her late twenties, who had lived for a year in the United States, explained that younger Chinese generations may be less collectivist and think differently of privacy: It also varies across different cultures. In collectivistic cultures, historically people lived together, so you don’t care a lot about your own privacy because you have a big family and everyone lives together, so everyone knows what you are doing right now. But in individualistic cultures, the Western cultures, people worry more about being private, you don’t want to be watched all the time, you need to have your own space. But nowadays, many younger generations, they also prefer to have a private space. (5) Other participants commented on the disregard for the self in China; one said that the teachings of Laozi [the founder of Taoism] focus on what to do with others, not oneself; another said that perhaps these teachings explained ‘a weak self’, compared to other philosophies that focus on individual development and autonomy. According to sinologist Jean-François Billeter, the idea that focusing on oneself is morally detestable can be traced back to political manoeuvres of imperial elites during the Han dynasties.8 Billeter explains how collectivism is a historical product of elites’ efforts to gain power, rather than a reflection of an essentialised Chinese civilisation. Imperial elites strategically framed strict adherence to pre-established ranks in society and selfsacrifice as a responsibility of all to ensure harmony. Therefore, the self was deemed vile. Billeter and several Chinese intellectuals assert that this historical social construction, which effectively prevented the emergence of individualised persons for centuries, may now be challenged as citizens affirm their individual rights.9 There is indeed growing research warning against labelling the entire Chinese population as collectivist, especially following the massive societal changes of the recent decades.10 In contrast with a simplistic view opposing China and the West, I observed a wide range of reactions regarding privacy, similar to what surveys report in Western countries. At one extreme, some participants were not concerned

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at all about the traces they left when buying online, as the following excerpts illustrate: Ma, the CEO of Alibaba, once said people buy more sexy cloth in Northern China, so yes, they have the data. It’s not a problem, people know their data are public. It’s OK, it’s normal, it’s like in a supermarket, it’s there to be bought. (27) It does not matter what things I buy. The public can know. (36) Traces are not a serious problem. This information is not related to privacy. Taxis . . . even if you don’t use Didi [a taxi application similar to Uber], if they want, they can know. This is public. (37) Some participants had fluctuating attitudes towards privacy, depending on context. For instance, an associate dean explained that his students posted too much on WeChat, that he did not like to see their posts and he himself only shared personal things only with his close friends. However, when I asked whether he used WeChat to pay, he urged me to look at his phone so he could show me his latest payments, including dinners with friends, how they had split the bills, and the red packets (money transfers) he had sent or received in that process. Clearly, he felt no discomfort in sharing information with a stranger like me. A couple of participants seemed to struggle to understand the notion of privacy itself. For instance, Wang Lan, a university ‘dormitory aunt’, did not understand that photos uploaded on a company website may be accessed by that company’s employees (or hackers, for that matter), or that the retail companies she was shopping with had a lot of information on her – she kept coming back to the matter of product quality. She even had to ask what we meant with privacy. In the end, she considered the traces she left as ‘tiny things’: Wang Lan: I use QQ albums to store videos and pictures. Researcher: Tencent can access that. Wang Lan: No, there’s only one album open to everyone. I am the only one who can see the others. Researcher: Oh, I  understand. But Tencent employees can access that as well. Wang Lan: No, they can’t. Researcher: Hum. And do you buy things online? Wang Lan: There’s nothing I won’t buy online. On Taobao [Alibaba], Jingdong, Weipinghue.

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Researcher: Therefore, these companies know what you buy. Wang Lan: That’s not a problem. Even if they know, I don’t care. If their product or service is bad, I  can compare on the internet and choose another. They send recommendations by text, but I choose not to see them, this does not affect me. Researcher: Since you also use WeChat Pay, Tencent knows a lot about you, right? Wang Lan: It’s not a problem, it is my choice, I can choose where I buy. [Seeing that she still does not raise privacy as a concern, I decide to be more explicit in my next question.] Researcher: Some people say there’s no privacy possible anymore, what do you think about that? [She asks the interpreter what privacy means, and he explains, before I can intervene, that it means information about her, such as her name and phone number.] Wang Lan: They know only tiny things: my contact number, my hobbies, my name, my phone number, my address, only tiny things. (45) Others were concerned about privacy, but they felt it was not possible to hide online behaviours such as the websites they visited, the videos they watched, or the items they bought. The cost of protecting privacy, which in many cases means that you cannot use the services, has been identified in Chinese research as an obstacle to the enactment of privacy concerns.11 This led to reactions similar to the privacy apathy or resignation identified in the Western literature,12 with both Chinese participants and foreign participants living in China: Ye Lan:

I had not thought of privacy. In the future, I will continue to buy online because it saves me time and energy. It takes a half day to go to a shop, there are traffic jams in Beijing. In my rest time I have other things to do, I don’t have enough time. Researcher: Another thing is when you split restaurant bills with WeChat pay, WeChat knows who you meet with. Ye Lan: That’s correct. I  have thought of that. It’s more convenient, I don’t care if others know with whom I am. (35) Researcher: Do you sometimes pay in cash instead of with Alipay, or take a regular cab instead of Didi? Harold: No. It would be a lot of efforts. I’m not sure if it makes any difference. If there was concrete danger, but as far as I  know, that’s not the case. It’s not worth the effort to try and get out of sight of technology. It’s useful for daily life. It’s a balancing act between risks and gains. Apparently, I don’t think the risks are great. (50)

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Those who were really concerned, however, resorted to anticipatory obedience,13 that is, they refrained from watching forbidden videos or posting forbidden comments: Luó Wen:

Sometimes, even though you are careful, you will leave digital fingerprints [sic]. There, you can’t hide that. Unless you know the technology very well and you can hide. I guess sometimes you have to give up something to gain, there are pros and cons. Researcher: What do you think we lose in that bargain? Luó Wen: I guess it’s just daily activities being captured. You can’t hide your own behaviours. Especially if you feel that certain things are sensitive: even though you don’t have bad intentions you can worry other people would question that, so you avoid these behaviours. (5) At the other end of the spectrum, some participants brought up privacy right away when I asked about the benefits and drawbacks of social media and online purchases. Mostly, these were people who had travelled abroad or were working for multinationals where they had exposure to colleagues and supervisors from different cultures, such as Singapore and Sweden. For instance, Xiaohan Feng displayed an acute privacy awareness: Most local people don’t understand privacy. Your name, your ID information, your driving card, your home address, your economics, your health, all belong to privacy. For a long time, the West has known that. But in China, they share, they don’t care, they don’t understand. I’m concerned with my photo. I met an American and a German, and then they contacted me on LinkedIn. I’m connected on LinkedIn with colleagues in human resources and in my industry, but these two men are not connected [with that network]. So that is a risk. (9) Likewise, Du Jianyu, a compliance manager in a multinational, actively protected her privacy. When I explained in a follow-up comment that the United States customs can now request visa candidates to provide their social media handles and passwords, she found the request invasive: That’s not reasonable! If they reject my visa application because I  don’t provide my password, it’s OK because I have the right [to refuse to provide my password], and they have the right [to deny a visa]. If it’s a business trip, I will tell my company I can’t go because I will not give my password. (30) Interestingly, Tian Haimeï, who had been raised in China and now lived in the United States, was very explicit about privacy risks on Facebook and

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much less concerned about WeChat. She felt that the possibility to restrict WeChat posts to specific persons or groups provided sufficient guarantees: Researcher: Do you view WeChat as more private than Facebook then? Tian Haimeï: Oh yes! I think so. I don’t use Facebook that much, I stopped posting on Facebook because I don’t know who’s watching. That scares me. . . . I don’t want someone who doesn’t know me to know my life, it could be bad people, that’s my concern. WeChat will have more privacy, so not all the people can see my posts on Moments, so I will not have to be bothered or connected by strangers [sic], that’s the part I like most. (6) In sum, participants’ privacy imaginaries reflected a continuum not very different from what has been observed in the United States, the United Kingdom, or other Western countries. What was more specific to China, however, was the scope of what the participants considered to be private, and the scope of the publics from which they wished to withhold private information. What is private? A different scope of privacy in China

At first, I  thought the participants defined privacy in terms of locations, that is, physical spaces that were public and others that were private. Many participants made a distinction between what happened in their homes or hotel rooms, which they considered private and not appropriate to include, and what happened in public spaces, which they viewed as not private and acceptable to include: Chinese people have different definitions of privacy – for me, it’s my hobbies, my sleeping quality, what I eat, not my public behaviours. (37) Researcher: What do you think about cameras in the streets? Gao Shu-hui: It’s necessary!! When bad things happen, you need to know, it’s a good thing. If it’s on the street, it’s not damaging your privacy, but in your own room yes. If it a public area, it’s OK.(28) Smoking is not allowed in many public areas, like restaurants or train stations, so if someone smokes, it is necessary to record that. But if you smoke in your home, it is not necessary to gather this kind of data. I just can’t understand, I’m not sure what the value of this data is. (25) In cities, cameras protect ordinary people’s safety, they’re good. But some small hotels have cameras in rooms, that’s illegal. I disagree with this, it’s people with bad intentions. (43)

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The consensus was that what happened in homes should not be ruled, monitored, or interfered with. For instance, an interpreter explained that one of the objectives of installing cameras in schools was to prevent teachers from beating children. When I asked about beatings at home, she said these occurred too, but no one interfered with what happened within families because it was a private matter. Likewise, when a participant said they did not mind being watched because they were ‘a good person’, I tried explaining that in my view, no one is on their best behaviours all the time and gave the example of a person coming back home exhausted after a trying day and yelling at their spouse – the person immediately exclaimed that ‘it didn’t matter’ because rules relate to what is public, not what happens in your home or within your family. To justify why behaviours at home remained private, people referred to the consequences of the behaviours on ‘the country’ (as we have seen in Chapter 4, it is important not to bring shame to the motherland). If these behaviours had no negative consequences, then they were deemed private: It’s personal, it’s nothing the government needs to worry about. We don’t impact other ones; if I watch more TV, it’s my habit. (30) The vivid reaction of Gao Shu-hui, a thoughtful young English teacher, is another example of this apparent public space versus home distinction. When I mentioned that watching certain content such as pornography or reading the wrong type of books had been cited as examples of behaviours that could reduce people’s score, her face flushed with anger. She explained why she felt this was wrong: Gao Shu-hui: That’s not right! We have the privacy to choose what we watch. The law says it’s OK to watch [pornography], it’s only if you sell pornography that you will be punished. I don’t feel comfortable with this. If I just read books, it’s my own thing, I don’t harm my country. It’s not good. (28) This distinction between public and private spaces intrigued me, as the participants seemed to discard the relevance of protecting their privacy in public spaces, whereas in Western countries, there have been protests against surveillance cameras in universities campuses and ‘smart cities’. Moreover, it seemed that this distinction did not fully explain what the participants viewed as private and why. Visitors in China witness how people seem very comfortable singing, dancing, exercising, napping, and quarrelling in public squares and parks, much more than in Europe and North America. An incident with the first research interview also piqued my interest. The interview was scheduled

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to take place after a welcome dinner that my Chengdu host had organised with some of her colleagues and the interviewee. When we were done eating, the colleague invited me to start the interview, and everyone settled down on the couch to watch the interview. I  was startled because I  had always conducted interviews in private, in one-on-one settings. I explained the usual way I conducted interviews and the colleagues graciously took that cue to leave us. This was a moment of reflexivity for me, both on what seemed natural for my Chinese colleagues who were also experienced in conducting research, and the way I had reacted, thinking it impossible to interview someone publicly and still get to the bottom of what the interviewee was thinking. I began to grasp that in China, privacy might not be defined along the public versus private lines that I was accustomed to. The answer to this privacy riddle was that the scope of privacy was in fact determined by the imperative to save face and ensure social respectability. Privacy was needed first and foremost as an escape from social judgement. The participants did not define privacy in terms of physical locations; the reason why many viewed the lack of privacy as more acceptable in public spaces than in private spaces was that they had renounced privacy in public spaces, whereas they wanted to safeguard it in their homes. What do you hide? Privacy as the saving of face and social respectability Privacy as the saving of face

In Mandarin, yǐnsī (a personal thing you do not wish to disclose in public) reflects the classic Western perspective that considers personal information and behaviours to be private, even insignificant behaviours that are not prone to moral and social judgements. The participants, however, clearly viewed privacy as yīnsī (hiding a shameful secret), the saving of face to maintain moral and social respectability; they strived to control the exposure of shameful information and feelings to social groups that could judge them negatively. Face comprises two concepts: lian (moral face) and mianzi (social face).14 Lian refers to the integrity of a person’s moral character, whereas mianzi refers to reputation in terms of success in life. Lian is a form of social respectability independent of social status, whereas mianzi depends on power and prestige. Considering face as lian, shameful things include the behaviours, thoughts, and emotions that can be judged negatively by others. Considering face as mianzi, shame is induced by low-status markers such as low-level jobs, which denote poor success, as well as high-status markers because the latter may embarrass others who are less successful.

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The higher the social standing, the more one has to deal with people of lesser status in dignified ways.15 In the mind of the participants, privacy meant being safe from strangers, keeping one’s undesirable behaviours hidden, and safeguarding one’s reputation. Reputation is protected by law in China, in a much more established way than privacy.16 The participants were worried about being judged by others and considered that protecting their reputation was a moral imperative. As a Chinese friend told me: ‘it’s being judged that people fear; in China, people immediately judge you’. A participant who had studied abroad was also of the mind that people in China judge easily, especially on manners and morality which were important matters. She appreciated not being judged as much while she lived abroad: In Norway, life is good. You can care about your own life, not people’s judgements. Here in China everyone looks at you. (56) The reason why people dreaded being judged was the shame they felt when something they wish they could hide was exposed: In China, the traditional way, anything happening to your family, you don’t want others to know. It’s shame. If you are happy, you can share with everyone but if you have problems, you don’t want the relatives to know. (32) Zhu Ai, one of the interpreters, was instrumental in reminding me of the centrality of face in China. First, she shared a saying: In China we have a joke: if there’s a fire, and you’re under the shower and have to go out naked, the one thing you need to protect is your face, not your body. Bodies are all the same but if you show your face, people can recognize you. (56) Then she made this intriguing confession: You’d never shop lift with a friend [you’d be too ashamed if you were caught], but you might take a chance if you are alone, even if there is a camera. (56) In her eyes, then, being caught stealing in a shop was not a huge deal. Yet losing face in front of a friend was to be avoided as the plague. As we saw in Chapter 3, public shaming is an efficient technic to nudge citizens to comply. As I was asking what makes people nervous about being caught on camera crossing the street at the red light, she explained: [Having to pay] the fine is not important, but having your picture broadcasted on a TV show is important [dissuasive]. The police sometimes posts pictures of criminals on Weibo too. (56)

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One of my hosts also helped me understand the stakes around safeguarding one’s reputation. A  colleague whom she had never met had made a request that annoyed her deeply. She brought this up at three different times during my stay as she was struggling to decide to accept or deny the request. But when she told me what was keeping her awake at night, I was bewildered: she was scheduled to give a talk at a conference in a European capital and the talk had been announced in the university’s newsletter. The colleague, seeing the announcement, had asked her to bring a package to her daughter who lived in that city. The package contained several voluminous items including . . . a flat-iron! Few Westerners would ask a colleague to carry an iron in their suitcase, and not many would think twice about turning down that request. However, she was very carefully pondering the implications of denying the request. She exclaimed: ‘I really don’t want to. But this person might spread bad comments on me. I must accept’. After I had cracked the riddle and established that the participants viewed privacy as an escape from social judgement, a comment from Wang Lan, the ‘dormitory aunt’, finally became intelligible; in that comment she was equating privacy with not being exposed to others in her social network, and viewed it in terms of protecting face: When I am in Beijing, sometimes I close the location [setting on my phone]. I don’t want everyone to know l am in Beijing [because I could not turn down their invitations]. Everyone needs privacy, every human, animals too. Everyone treasures their face. Moreover, face saving and fear of judgements explain why only shameful things are considered private, whereas neutral or positive things are not. This is in stark contrast with Western views in which privacy is defined in terms of freedoms, independently of the moral nature of the information and behaviours you wish to keep private (e.g. people may not want others to know their routine itineraries and habits even though there is nothing scandalous or illegal to hide). Most participants thought of face as moral face (lian). However, some also referred to privacy as saving social face (mianzi), to prevent other people from discovering their low social standing or feeling less successful than you. A young secretary in a state-owned company and an older university employee confirmed the view of privacy as social face: What is private is also some information about us, my job, my age, my employer, our children, my parents, my parents’ jobs. We don’t want to talk about the job because we have faces. Or decent jobs, it’s OK to talk about it, but if you don’t have a good job, it’s not OK. (16) If I’m going to a nice place and I want to post [on WeChat], maybe my colleague is working extra time now, so I’d better not post. So, I post less and less. (15)

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Paul, a French teacher, summarised it concisely: Face is about a balance between people. You don’t want to belittle people. (11) Paul also explained that face not only means protecting one’s reputation but also that of one’s in-group, for example, the extended family, or even the country. He narrated preparations for Michelle Obama’s visit in Chengdu in 2014 and laughed as he explained the facades of all the buildings on the path of her car ride had been redone to look more modern: only the facades had been redone. Shameful things are ‘private’, therefore wanting privacy is suspicious

What, then, is considered necessary to hide? In anthropologist Hsien Chi Hu’s words, to lose moral face is ‘a condemnation by the group for immoral or socially disagreeable behavior’.17 The participants most often mentioned financial information. Many did not want others to know how much money they had in their bank accounts or how much they made, particularly if they did well. The downplay of financial means can be interpreted, as the winner of the televised contest Chinese Bridge Sébastien Roussillat suggests, as a form of protection against others’ jealousies: professing humility avoids attracting unwanted attention.18 For instance, private financial information included: My personal record in the bank, my buying records of the last year: this belongs to privacy. (43) Our property, how much we have, our relations to family and friends, our profits, if I transfer money to friends. (16) IDs, yes, we provide our ID info in many places, this is not private anymore, but bank passwords, income, that is private, very private. Health is not a privacy concern. What is private is home address, bank passwords, negative feelings. (13) When I asked participants what they might want to buy with cash instead of electronic payments, they mentioned personal medicine, underwear, sexrelated products, and weapons: Cash is a problem too, I have to show up to the shop in person, it’s riskier. It makes me more nervous. For instance, if I need to buy a medicine and I’m ashamed, I buy it online. (15)

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When you buy private things such as underwear, they pack it really well in a black bag and they don’t put the name of the product on the outside of the package. (27) A bra [she laughs], beauty [she shows me her face, meaning aesthetic surgery], but I have not done that. I just guess. (9) Products like condoms; for Chinese people, sex is very private. If Taobao records, it’s very easy to . . . this information I don’t want to share. (25) Everyone defines privacy differently: for me, if I buy a knife for instance, my family members don’t like these things. (42) If only shameful things are private, the logical corollary is that it is suspicious to want privacy because it must mean one has something to hide. This is what the opening quote of this chapter implies: There is an old saying, I hope it does not offend you: if my body is straight, I  won’t worry that my shadow is not straight. So, if I’m someone who behaves well, I won’t mind the cameras. Only people who misbehave mind the cameras. (37) Note that the person who expressed these views is Hé Gang, the IT architect whom I quoted at the beginning of the chapter as contrasting China and the West in a Manichean way. His apology, ‘I hope it does not offend you’, suggests that to him, the reason why Western people criticise cameras is that they have shameful behaviours to hide. The following quote from a female taxi driver also illustrates this idea: Maybe the reason is they are not confident they are doing well enough. If you do well enough, you should not be afraid. If you behave well, whether they are cameras or not, it’s the same. (46) It has been noted in Western samples as well, particularly young people samples, that privacy breaches were not considered a serious issue when one has nothing to hide.19 In their research on teenagers, Michael Adorjan and Rosemary Ricciardelli note that teens tend to assume that if one has something to hide, it must be illicit. They discarded other privacy risks such as having their information hacked and suffering penalties if they engage in digital activism, express their sexual identity online, or disclose stigmatising information.20 However, the reasoning that emerged from this pool of Chinese participants differed in that it drew heavily on the moral quality (‘suzhi’) narrative that we have analysed in Chapter 3. Those who viewed their fellow citizens as lacking moral quality and

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considered that wanting privacy indicated a desire to hide shameful behaviours could find no morally sound reason to advocate for privacy. This reasoning deflected any critic of surveillance in the name of privacy. On the contrary, these participants viewed technology as a good thing for society because making everyone’s behaviours visible and traceable helped to uncover and deter immoral behaviours. This reasoning was mostly prevalent among the less educated participants, although one older person with a bachelor also held these views: For these cameras, as long as they are there for the purpose of public security, it is OK because most of us won’t do anything illegal or violate the regulations, so it’s not a violation of our privacy. (13) Technology makes it apparent, there’s no place for criminals to hide, maybe the dark side is privacy is exposed. (40) The need to show compliance and ‘positivity’

Not only was privacy seen as potentially suspicious, but a certain lack of privacy was desirable in that it enabled participants to show things that are socially expected, such as care for their parents, conformity to social norms, and a positive attitude. Three words were used very frequently by participants: ‘hide’, ‘know’, and ‘show’. The image that best captures this intriguing triangle of words is that of a shadow theatre where people are busy hiding things that are embarrassing for themselves or others, hoping these things would not become known, while at the same time showing things as protection from the inquisitive watch of family and other social networks’ members. Showing conformity took several forms, such as demonstrating care in the family domain, and hard work in the professional domain: WeChat enhances family relationships, especially when you are scattered. You can talk every day and show your care. (7) People are very cautious what they are showing to their boss, maybe, certain posts showing they are working hard, they are working overtime, so good posts [she emphasizes the word ‘good’]. (5) As on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, people managed impressions on WeChat and strove to forge a positive image, which others criticised as false and shallow: Low-income young people post pictures of themselves wearing luxury cloth, they create a false image. (55)

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WeChat gives you a fake identity. Every day, people share photos, their lifestyle, their good dishes, their holidays . . . the beautiful side of life, they want to show their friends they enjoy life, but actually this is not the fact of life. I know it because I’m good at taking photos, I post it and, P.S., I hated it. It’s fake, sometimes I use it because I want to show a good side, a positive side of myself. But if you do it every day, people are annoyed, like if you say, ‘I’m on holiday, I eat lobsters’. (7) Demonstrating compliance and good standing was important to build and maintain social respectability. This is perhaps the reason why a 2019 survey found that 50 per cent of respondents had shared their social credit score with family and friends.21 The emphasis on positivity was particularly potent. As a person who grew up in Europe, I became aware of the greater prevalence of positive discourses and behaviours in North America compared with Europe. The differences are observable in the way teachers and supervisors give feedback to students and employees, the way awards and medals are given to all children in extra-curriculum activities, the way recommendation letters are written, and so forth. But in China, positivity is also a pillar of the state’s mainstream ideology under Xi Jinping. The ‘positive energy’ (zheng nengliang) motto is an injunction to ‘focus on positive examples and uplifting stories of effort and heroism’ rather than comment on what’s wrong in the country.22 For instance, TikTok dedicates a trending section to a Positive Energy videos that encourage citizens to construct ‘playful patriotism’ and are very popular.23 Many participants had interiorized the positive energy injunction in their judgements of others’ posts and their own posts. Several of them insisted they were optimistic persons and posted positive content to ‘share their happiness’: Liu Liang:

Several years ago, in college, I  was the expressional student, I encouraged my fellow students to work hard. Training people to be optimistic, it’s also my personality, and it gives me a reminder of being strong, of being tough. Researcher: Do you mean that posting about good moments is a way of showing your optimism? Liu Liang: Yes. (7) I like to share about my life, not my work. Travels, beautiful pictures, the dishes I cook, souvenirs, good movies, good feelings, also the plants, flowers, all aspects of my life. Some articles about interior design, design cloth, Japan architecture, and my friends give me positive comments. (13)

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Moreover, when I asked a human resources officer whether she checked job candidates’ WeChat profiles, she confirmed that she did, to see if job candidates were ‘positive persons’: I scan what they post to know who they are in other situations, to have a comprehensive understanding, to see if they are a positive person, or if they complain a lot. It’s not critical in our hiring decisions, it’s just curiosity. (35) Conversely, complaints were viewed very negatively: On Weibo, there are bad KOL [Key Opinion Leaders], it’s not clean anymore. Some use emotional sentences, they are bad voices. I  rarely comment now. There have been lots of dummy users recently. (30)

Who do you hide from? Parents and supervisors, not the government

Defining privacy in terms of saving face rather than a right to conceal personal information has implications not only in terms of scope (that is, only shameful things are private) but also in terms of the actors from which to protect information. Whereas privacy in the Western literature is concerned with disclosures to others including individuals, social groups, corporations, and governments, the participants focused mostly on disclosures to other individuals (such as family members, colleagues, and supervisors) and social groups (such as elders). These findings are in line with Communications Professor Elaine Yuan’s analysis of how people think of privacy on Weibo posts: she found that people most often use the word in the context of relationships (referring to a spouse, a child, a friend, or a boss) and social settings (e.g. family, marriage).24 This focus on social relationships is also logical when one views privacy as geared towards social respectability. Figure 5.1, derived from data analysis in NVivo 12, illustrates the words most frequently associated with ‘privacy’, with categories of audience such as ‘friends’ and ‘parents’ appearing distinctly: A few participants mentioned corporations, as I analyse in Chapter 9, but all excluded the government from their radar. In other words, these privacy concerns implied horizontal peer groups much more than vertical groups. This does not mean that they did not care about privacy but rather that they did not view the government as a threat to their privacy.25 This pattern of emphasising horizontal privacy may also reflect the Chinese focus noted by Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong on relationships between people, rather than ties to abstract collectives as in Western societies.26 The

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FIGURE 5.1 Word

cloud on privacy, as rendered by NVivo 12

relational perception of privacy manifested itself with a concern not to embarrass others: You don’t want to bother other people, especially people you are not too familiar with. I don’t want to disclose that much to people I’m not related to, especially regarding my emotions, how I feel. I don’t want other people to know that. (5) If I post something not positive about my work, my boss might think I’m complaining that he gave me too much work. (56) [On TikTok] you see videos by friends, but you don’t follow them because of privacy [they would mind being followed]. You focus on the videos, not their authors. (27)

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Many participants stressed it was important to hide a range of information, facts, and feelings from important persons in one’s guanxi, that is, network of relationships. The figures they most wanted to hide from were elders and supervisors. Several participants confessed that they only gave their parents ‘safe news’, such as ‘I’m well, I’m in a good condition, in a good mood’. They deliberately concealed information from their family and in particular their parents and related elders. Typically, problems such as health, financial, employment, or marriage issues were hidden, with the professed motive to prevent the parents from worrying. Another motive was to avoid being questioned by parents who might want to intervene in their grown children’s lives: I don’t want to be under the spotlight, under the radar: the older people, they poke around: what do you eat? What’s going on in our family? (1) Hiding was, in these instances, cast as a good deed, a concern for others, and a way to save your face and theirs too. It is common in Western countries, too, that young people try to avert the gaze of their parents, teachers, and supervisors.27 However, in China it can take unexpected forms. For instance, one of the interpreters excused himself for a half day because he suffered from severe hypertension and needed a check-up at the hospital. The next day, he invited me to dinner at his family home and when I  saw that his mother was heavily salting the dishes despite his hypertension, I looked quizzically at him, wondering why he was not preventing her from doing so. He later told me that his mother did not know his condition. As I was asking Zhu Ai, another of the interpreters, if it was frequent that people refrain from sharing negative aspects of their life with their parents, she painted a nuanced view of closeness with one’s parents, contrasting the desire to go seek comfort in one’s parents’ home with the imperative to keep them in the dark as to one’s troubles: If you share your feelings with your parents, for instance you say you’ve had a bad day or you’re sad, they’ll ask you what happened, they’ll ask many questions. If you broke up with your boyfriend and you need a place to rest, you go home and eat your mom’s food, but you don’t tell them the reason. (56) Most people discussed hiding from their own parents and extended elder family such as aunts and uncles. This concurs with Yao Li and colleagues’ reports that parents are often excluded from posts’ audiences on WeChat; for instance, one of their participants stated: ‘I tag my parents out if I post about my girlfriend because they’ll ask a lot’.28 While this could reflect a classic generational gap, 60-year-old Wang Lan explained that she, too, kept other elders in the dark regarding sad or embarrassing news:

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I only share the happy thing with my generation and other elders, because of their old age. I don’t want to create a mental burden for them. (45) Her comment suggests that it’s not just one’s parents that should be kept in the dark but elders, regardless of the age difference. Supervisors were another important source of social pressure. Yang Jie, a bright PhD student, explained why students typically beware of sharing too much with their supervisors: On WeChat we have some work groups with supervisors and some without, because students tend to open to their peers, not to elders. We don’t want to create misunderstandings or worry elders. There’s the power relationship too, some topics are not suitable or appropriate. So, we have parallel groups that do not involve parents or the supervisor. (12) Along the same lines, the interpreter Yáng You showed me his WeRun profile, where distances run by users are displayed and the users who run the most are rewarded by appearing on the front page. He joked that PhD candidates make sure to hide their WeRun profiles from their supervisors, so that the supervisors do not realise how much time they spend running instead of studying. Most participants did not have corporations or the government on their mind when they thought about privacy. This explains why they felt they could hide on Weibo. Weibo is a large public social network where posts and comments can be seen broadly, but writers can use a pen name. Several participants described Weibo as a space where they could ‘escape’ and be free to ‘be themselves’. These statements make sense when you consider that on Weibo, they can express themselves without their family or supervisors reading their comments, in a case of what privacy scholar Alan Westin calls ‘public privacy’.29 Along these lines, Lǐ Nuan, an astute university officer in charge of international exchange programmes, explained: There is an interesting saying that in QQ you try to behave as a good person, in WeChat you can be your true self in small groups, and on Weibo nobody knows you, so don’t worry! You can follow people, it’s for gossip, news, jokes, fun things. You can follow someone without the person knowing. (15) Likewise, Wú Qing a young accountant working in a multinational, reported: On Weibo I have long time friends, I can be myself, show the real me, but on WeChat I’ll pretend to be more polite, more kind, I won’t show the evil side, when I complain, the depression.

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Liu Liang, a man in his thirties who worked at the university, compared Weibo with a traditional Chinese hermitage: On Weibo it’s different, you can be yourself, you can write your true feelings because probably nobody identifies you. You can change your name. In Chinese philosophy we have a saying: ‘live within, live without’. ‘Live within’ means you live in this world. ‘Live without’ means you look at the world from the outside, you just escape, like a hermit, in a forest, nobody else living around you. When I get tired, that is my dream. Weibo is just another cyberspace for this moment, you can feel that nobody knows you. It’s an escape! Lǐ Nuan and Wú Qing did not aspire to keep things just to themselves; rather, they aspired to share with the friends who knew their pen name, as well as others whom they did not worry about because these people did not know who they were. As Cai Huang Fu, a quiet start-up programmer, put it: On Weibo I use a different name so people can’t find me. My boss is older, so he’s not on Weibo. I post often, it’s for my friends. (19) I asked these participants whether they minded that Weibo now required real-name registration and, therefore, Weibo and the government knew their real identity. However, most participants had forgotten they had provided their identity, and very few worried about the consequences of doing so.

BOX 5.1  SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE ANGUISHING NARRATIVES The following analysis relies on coding in the software NVivo. Among the set of anguishing moral narratives analysed in this part of this book, the dominant one was the need to save face due to concerns about social judgements (78 per cent of interviews). It was more salient among women, participants under 40, those who worked in state-owned companies and those who had had no international exposure. The second dominant narrative was the discussion of safety and national security as crucial objectives justifying surveillance (71 per cent of interviews); it was more common among participants who were educated, who worked in the public sector, had had international exposure, and were CPC members. The third dominant narrative, mentioned by 66 per cent of the research participants, was the view of Chinese citizens as lacking ‘moral quality’. This view was more common among men, participants

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over 50, those who were less educated (bachelor, technical secondary school, high school), who worked in private or state-owned companies, had had no international exposure, and were not CPC members. The rhetoric of punishment (29 per cent of interviews) was also more salient among men than women. In a similar vein, a recent quantitative study also found that women are less likely than men to support punishment based on social credit systems.30 Lastly, the argument that China is unique and cannot be judged using Western standards (45 per cent of interviews) was more salient among those under 30, among PhDs, and among CPC members.

*** This chapter has proposed an analysis of privacy imaginaries in China, which is foundational to analyse their views on digital surveillance. The insights that (a) privacy is associated with face saving, (b) face saving pertains to shameful things and therefore the desire to hide is suspicious, and (c) corporations and government are not on participants’ radar when they think of privacy, shed light on the reasons why digital surveillance could be seen as useful rather than invasive. As I will argue in the next part of this book, digital surveillance is framed as addressing moral shortcomings: where there is poor ‘moral quality’ and shameful behaviours to hide, cameras and surveillance can open up a path towards ‘civilisation’. Notes 1 David Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance: Watching as a Way of Life (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). 2 Yao Li, Xinning Gui, Yunan Chen, Heng Xu, and Alfred Kobsa, “When SNS Privacy Settings Become Granular: Investigating Users’ Choices, Rationales, and Influences on Their Social Experience,” (paper presented at the ACM on HumanComputer Interaction, New York, 2018). 3 Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Nancy P. Rothbard, and Justin M. Berg, “When Worlds Collide in Cyberspace: How Boundary Work in Online Social Networks Impacts Professional Relationships,” Academy of Management Review 38, no. 4 (2013). 4 Li et al., “When SNS Privacy Settings Become Granular.” 5 Ariane Ollier-Malaterre and Nancy P Rothbard, “Social Media or Social Minefield? Surviving in the New Cyberspace Era,” Organizational Dynamics 44, no. 1 (2015). 6 Jingchung Cao, “Protecting the Right to Privacy in China,” Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 25 (2005). 7 Sébastien Roussillat, Comment devenir aussi sage qu’un Chinois (Paris: L’iconoclaste, 2018). 8 Jean-François Billeter, Contre François Jullien (Paris: Editions Allia, 2017). 9 Ibid.

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10 Ibid. 11 Menghong Han, Siqi Shen, Yuexin Zhou, Zebing Xu, Tianyue Miao, and Jiayin Qi, “An Analysis of the Cause of Privacy Paradox among SNS Users: Take Chinese College Students as an Example” (paper presented at the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii, 2019). 12 Eszter Hargittai and Alice E. Marwick, “ ‘What Can I  Really Do?’: Explaining the Privacy Paradox with Online Apathy,” International Journal of Communication 10 (2016); Helen Kennedy, Susan Oman, Mark Taylor, Jo Bates, and Robin Steedman, “Public Understanding and Perceptions of Data Practices: A Review of Existing Research,” in Living with Data (Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 2020). 13 Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2017). 14 Hsien Chin Hu, “The Chinese Concepts of ‘Face’,” American Anthropologist, New Series 46, no. 1 Part 1 (1944). 15 Ibid. 16 Cao, “Protecting the Right to Privacy in China.” 17 Hu, “The Chinese Concepts of ‘Face’,” 46. 18 Roussillat, Comment devenir aussi sage qu’un Chinois. 19 Daniel J. Solove, “I’ve Got Nothing to Hide and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy,” San Diego Law Review 44 (2007). 20 Michael Adorjan and Rosemary Ricciardelli, “A  New Privacy Paradox? Youth Agentic Practices of Privacy Management Despite ‘Nothing to Hide’ Online,” Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 56, no. 1 (2019). 21 Genia Kostka and Lukas Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship: Behavioral Responses to China’s Emerging Social Credit Systems,” Policy & Internet 12, no. 3 (2019). 22 Rogier Creemers, “Cyber China: Upgrading Propaganda, Public Opinion Work and Social Management for the Twenty-First Century,” Journal of Contemporary China 26, no. 103 (2017): 98. 23 Xu Chen, D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, and Jing Zeng, “#Positiveenergy Douyin: Constructing ‘Playful Patriotism’ in a Chinese Short-Video Application,” Chinese Journal of Communication 14, no. 1 (2021). 24 Elaine Yuan. The Web of Meaning: The Internet in a Changing Chinese Society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021). 25 Hannah Rose Kirk, Kangkyu Lee, and Carlisle Micalle, “The Nuances of Confucianism in Technology Policy: An Inquiry into the Interaction Between Cultural and Political Systems in Chinese Digital Ethics,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 35 (2022). 26 Theresa  Krause and  Doris  Fischer, “An Economic Approach to  China’s Social Credit System,” in Social Credit Rating, ed. Oliver Everling (Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler, 2020). 27 danah boyd, “Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics” (PhD diss., University of California, School of Information, 2008, http:// www.danah.org/papers/takenoutofcontext.pdf. 28 Li et al., “When SNS Privacy Settings Become Granular.” 29 Alan F. Westin, Privacy and freedom (New York: Atheneum, 1967). 30 Chuncheng Liu, “Who Supports Expanding Surveillance? Exploring Public Opinion of Chinese Social Credit Systems,” International Sociology 37, no. 3 (2022).

PART III

Redeeming narratives of digital protection

6 THE GOVERNMENT AS PROTECTION AND ORDER

In the Chinese tradition, the government is like a parent. The government takes care of its people. [It has been so] for 2000 years. We may not trust some government officials, but we trust the government. We have the right to express ourselves, just not to reach the bottom line. The bottom line is we can’t change the whole political system. It’s the oneparty system.

Thus far, this book has identified three narratives of moral shortcomings in participants’ surveillance imaginaries: (a) the lack of ‘moral quality’ in China that makes rules and punishment necessary, (b) the shame of past national humiliations, and (c) a view of privacy as hiding shameful thoughts and behaviours. This chapter and the next discuss the other side of the medal: two positive narratives of the government and technology that assuage the anguish regarding moral shortcomings. Specifically, the government and technology were framed by participants as the two pillars that support China’s dream of a safe, prosperous, and morally sound civilisation. This cohesive system of narratives that respond to one another creates a context where digital surveillance may be seen as useful, at least on an abstract level when it applies to others. There is a consensus among sinologists that a majority of Chinese people support their central government and institutions, in particular, the Communist Party of China (CPC), the National People’s Congress, and the People’s Liberation Army, and approve of these institutions’ mission and policies.1 Sinologist Jean-Pierre Cabestan notes that when comparing the development DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-10

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of China since the 1990s with other Asian countries’ setbacks, Chinese citizens appreciate China’s political stability and economic development. Moreover, many consider socio-economic rights and professional success more important than political rights and individual freedoms.2 The government, of course, is not monolithic. It is important to distinguish between citizens’ support for the government, which has strong historical roots, and their appraisals of specific political leaders. On the one hand, citizens’ positive views on the central government are well documented: a 2017 Ipsos survey reports that nearly 9 in 10 Chinese citizens, compared with 43 per cent of Americans, believe their country is ‘on the right track’.3 The high levels of support of the regime among Chinese citizens after the 1989 Tiananmen movement have intrigued political scientists who had forecasted a democratisation of China alongside its economic reforms; this enduring rule of the CPC has been dubbed ‘authoritarian resilience’.4 On the other hand, faith in the government does not automatically transpose to political leaders. Xi Jinping has acknowledged and even emphasised the damage done by corrupt officials within the Party and the need to repair trust (chengxin): doctors, teachers, and sex workers enjoy greater levels of trust within China than leaders, in particular, local leaders.5 Moreover, Chinese citizens distinguish between the local and the central government. Cabestan explains that historically, Chinese people have admired strong governors and have easily attributed the failures and errors of judgement to deficient advisers rather than to the Emperors themselves.6 Today, when citizens are dissatisfied, they criticise local officials and petition to the central government for help.7 See, for instance, how Yang Jie, a PhD student and CPC member, presents the ‘globally centralised government’ as an enlightened and ultimate recourse: The world is in trouble, there are high inequalities, and Trump is the product of that. In China, the reforms were good and we have market mechanisms, for instance the respect of private property, but state owned enterprises can mitigate the bad side of capitalism. In Hong Kong, housing prices are insane. This is a problem because in the Chinese tradition you need to buy an apartment before you marry. Housing prices have risen 10 times and our salary has not. The globally centralised government has realised that. (12) Although I  did not ask direct questions about the government, the participants referred to the government spontaneously and abundantly. For instance, Tian Haimeï, a young woman who had studied in the United States and was now a faculty there, went straight from comparing privacy attitudes in China and the United States to discussing the CPC: Tian Haimeï: And one interesting thing I want to add: I have seen different attitudes towards this [cameras] between American and Chinese people. If you go to China, you will see many cameras

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on the street, everywhere, and this is very useful when the police want to deal with some crime scene, they can just get it done immediately. But all your life would just be exposed then. If you ask Chinese people, they will tell you ‘that’s fine, it’s no problem at all, it will keep us safe, it’s the right thing to do’. The Americans will give a different answer. Researcher: Why? Tian Haimeï: For Americans it’s just a cultural thing, they care about their own [brief silence] their privacy, their own space, and that’s understandable. I think in China, part of the reason is because of the Communist Party, because people trust the Party, especially still a lot of senior people, they think whatever they are doing is right, it’s good for us, good for our society, for the harmony of the country, so they will support that. (6) Likewise, Gao Shu-hui, an English teacher, quickly identified distrust in the government as a core source of privacy concerns in Western countries, which she contrasted with the Chinese political system: Researcher:

In the West, some people dislike cameras because they are afraid of the police. Gao Shu-hui: Then it’s not the cameras you are afraid of, it’s the system behind it. Researcher: [Brief silence as I  ponder how to follow up] You’re right. If you look back at European history, there’s a sense that a strong government can hurt you. Gao Shu-hui: There are different country systems. We are all led by the CPC. (28) Therefore, questions around cameras, facial recognition, and the social credit system often led to discussions on China’s government. Some participants remained within the contours of official propaganda, yet others engaged in deep reflections about the benefits and drawbacks of the Chinese political system, to my alarm and that of my interpreters, especially in Beijing where political topics seemed to be particularly sensitive. The participants put forth several rationales to explain why Chinese citizens support their government. This is important to understand because research shows people are more willing to accept invasive surveillance technology if they trust the actor employing it. For instance, a study found a positive relationship between political trust and the support of surveillance measures in Germany; this study argues that political trust may reduce people’s uncertainty in circumstances where civil liberties are in jeopardy.8 This chapter unpacks the different rationales that the participants evoked regarding the government and show how they sustain each other in a tight-knit

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system that justifies support for the government. It first analyses the rationale stating that China is unique because of its history, culture, and size and that the one-party system is therefore the only way to counter chaos in China. It then explores perceptions of the government as a trusted protector, almost a parent, in line with the emphasis placed in China on care and protection. Third, it introduces the final argument that the participants mobilised when push came to shove: that the government is by the people and that the people have a voice, should the government not work for them anymore. China is not an ordinary country: it is the Middle Kingdom

The first line of arguments brought up by many participants when discussing governance revolved around the core idea that China is different, and therefore Western reasoning does not apply. This idea reflects a core belief well known of sinologists. China’s uniqueness and prominence in the world, as the ‘Middle Kingdom’, has been traced back to the Shanhaijing, the Classic of Mountains and Seas. This book is a foundational collection of detailed geographical descriptions and mythical accounts written between the fifth century bce and the second century ce. It describes a square Earth connected in its centre to a round heaven through China’s five majestic mountains.9 In this imaginary, China is the only world that is located under the light of heaven and therefore civilised, the others being left in the dark. Along these lines, sinologist Jean-François Billeter explains that for centuries, power in China has perceived itself as being representative of heaven and therefore universal. The tensions that arose with Western colonial powers in the 19th century challenged this view because they positioned China as one nation among others. Chinese intellectuals’ response to this challenge was to frame China as being unique, special, different in substance, and self-sufficient: ‘If it could not be the whole world, it would be a whole world, unique and irreplaceable’.10 This implied, in turn, an imperative to define the unique Chinese identity and to reaffirm its value, despite unfavourable economic development comparisons.11 Billeter further argues that the myth of a united China whose identity remains unchanged and different from the rest of the world is stronger than ever before in contemporary China, because evocations of the glorious history and culture of China serve the government. This myth is also held by many Western intellectuals, who depict China as radically and substantially different from Western cultures–sinologist François Jullien, for instance, popularised a set of binary East versus West oppositions.12 Kai Strittmatter, a long-time Beijing correspondent of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, also notes that the myth that China cannot be understood based on Western logic is a form of orientalism cultivated by the CPC itself: such cultural relativism serves the CPC by disregarding Western values and standards as irrelevant for China.13

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In the research interviews, participants articulated the uniqueness of China along several dimensions, beginning with history. In his living room, with his toddler and mother-in-law, Yang Jie indulged me with an account of Chinese history: In Chinese history, a strong government brought peace and life was good. When the government was weak, then it was the war lords. There were cycles of dynasties every 300 years, and when a dynasty became weak and was not able to control the borders, there were rebellions, chaotic situations, and it ended when another government was built. (12) Qiu Chu Hua, a Mandarin teacher who had worked in France and Canada, captured the historical argument for the one-party system quite concisely: We have had great trials and the outcome is that now, after 5000 years [she refers to the propaganda theme of the 5000 years of continuous civilisation], it’s good. We are too many people in China, it’s not like in France or Canada. When two political parties oppose each other, they are at war. We have already had that [such as the civil war between the nationalist the communist parties up until the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949] and it means misery for people. Just one [party] in power, it’s good. (53) In fact, the preference for a strong government has deep historical roots in China. Sinologist Léon Vandermeersch wrote that monism, the view of the universe as a fundamentally united whole, has been at the core of Chinese governance for millennia. As much as there is only one heaven (‘tian’), there can only be one emperor or monarch in a society, and one father in a family. Since the universe is one, the human order must be one as well; rulers, whose task it is to interpret the universe’s changes and adapt rituals to these evolutions, must converge towards a common interpretation, lest society becomes chaotic. This view of governance is of course radically opposed to the pluralism and separation of powers characteristic of liberal democracies; it also does not conceive of political institutions as emanating from citizens; rather, the mandate to govern originates from the heaven.14 The sheer size of China was a second argument frequently used to support the imperative of the one-party system. In the words of Yang Jie: China is unmanageable at the country level without control. Frankly speaking, I  read the concerns [about surveillance] in the West, but the social credit system is very useful because we are a large country, and the education level is not very high. Only 10 per cent of the population has

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a bachelor’s degree or above [remember that lack of education is often associated with lack of moral quality, which justifies surveillance]. (12) One of the most enlightening interviews I conducted was with Ma Bao, a young accountant who confided with pride, at the end of our interview, that he was a member of the CPC. That Saturday, I  had told my interpreter that she could day the day off since the two scheduled participants had opted to speak in English. Therefore, Ma Bao and I were alone and after an hour and a half of gauging and testing me, he ventured to discuss governance quite directly; as I analyse in Chapter 10, he had drastic variations in speed and pitch of speech, which I believe reflected tensions between personal thoughts (slow and hesitant) and learned discourse (fast, self-assured): [Starts with a stutter and a hesitating tone] The Western style of voting or debating on everything will lead to lesser efficiency. There are 1.4 billion people in China. If we adopt this system and everyone has their voice, it’s hard to make decisions. One reason China has made so much progress in the last 40 years is that we avoid many disagreements in viewpoints. It’s very risky because if leaders make the wrong decisions the country is affected a lot, but with good decisions, we make a lot of progress. We have had a central control system for 2000  years; this nation has been forged by a centralised political system. It still works. Considering the population, we should avoid too much fighting. Maybe in the future there will be another party, but if there are two parties they will fight, and it will be a disaster. Within CPC itself there are different views but at the top of political power, we prefer that one party is in control. [Speaking faster, as if reciting]. If the top power is destabilised, the country will be destabilised. This has repeated itself in Chinese history. We had many dynasties; each was taken down by another because the former authority did not control the whole power. Then the winner founded their own dynasty. This repeats again and again. If the CPC does not do well for the country, they will be taken over by another party. That party will also centralise. (25) Another line of thought used to contest the relevance of Western values in China pertained to stages of economic and social development. The idea, here, was that China needed to focus first on growing its economy and ensuring the basic needs of its population, and then the government could turn its attention to what the participants termed ‘human rights’. The premise underlying this rationale was that economic progress could only lead to moral

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progress, in a linear reasoning atypical of the much-taunted cyclical Chinese mindset. In the words of Yang Jie [note the use of the pronoun ‘we’]: We have human rights attacks from the West. We agree human rights are important, but China’s priority is to keep people away from hunger, to give them houses, and clean water. Then the other rights will come, step by step. Travel used to be restricted but it is becoming better. My parents, my grand-parents have witnessed how the current government has changed our lives. (12) Cai Huang Fu, a programmer in a Shanghai e-commerce company, also thought prioritizing economic growth was necessary: Cai Huang Fu: In China, big firms don’t have the barrier that Facebook and companies in the United States have, it saves Chinese companies money. We need to grow fast, and for other things besides growing faster, there is not much consideration. Researcher: What is best, do you think? Cai Huang Fu: It depends on the development of the country, it’s a balance. For the development phase of China, maybe the global privacy is not the most important thing. At this time, China needs to grow fast to be a well-developed country. But when China grows faster and is more developed, the sense of personal privacy will grow. (19) The priority given to material needs was sometimes combined with the rules narrative that I analysed in Chapter 3, especially among older participants and participants working in state-owned companies and the public sector (e.g. university, community centre), who often were members of the CPC. For instance, this is how Ding Thao, a 56-year-old repair and maintenance agent with high school education, framed Chinese people’s acceptance of restrictions: Researcher: In the West, some people find cameras scary, they don’t feel free when they are being watched. Ding Thao: I can understand, there is a big difference is social regulations, I  grew up with these social regulations. In the West, people mind, in China [nervous laughter and brief silence, followed by a king of disclaimer]. I’m a normal person, it’s hard to say, I can just explain from my perspective, it’s not a professional opinion. In the West, social regulations allow more freedom, in China there are many rules, we must obey the rules, obey the

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regulations from the central government. In the West, when people are not satisfied, they take to the street. But in China there are not many demonstrations. Regulations sometimes constrain us, but from my perspective, I have something to eat, I  have work, I  can fulfill my basic needs. Even if we are not satisfied with regulations, it does not matter, we can live with that. (36) Li Tao, a community centre officer, also related acceptance of surveillance in China with the rules narrative and the uniqueness of China: China is special. If you grow up in China, teachers tell you to sit upright, the environment is totally different, you have to respect the teacher. In the West, you respect the teacher in a different way. For people born after 1980s, teachers try to build an equal relationship; it’s a mix of traditional Chinese methods but also new methods. You still have to obey the rules of schools and of the country. (20) In a similar vein, Zhong Li, a 52-year-old accountant with a bachelor education, explained Eastern versus Western views on freedom and rules drawing on Taoism and a ‘red flag’ education: The East is different; in the East we’re used to this way of seeing things. In the West, people value freedom and power, very strongly. Personal power. People of my age, we have a weak self-concept, a weak idea of our personal rights, because of our culture. I don´t have a deep understanding but Laozi said you should be pious and obey elders. He did not focus on rights for yourself: the philosophy is about how to deal with others, not yourself. People my age, when we were young, we were taught to obey, discipline was important. Our generation has grown up under the red flag. (39) The participants I  just quoted implied that if the conditions changed, for instance when with greater economic development or evolving social norms, Chinese citizens may come to view privacy as important. Other participants, however, essentialised the ‘Chinese character’ itself as radically different from that as ‘Westerners’. Several participants talked with pride of the optimistic, family-like, and pragmatic nature of Chinese people. For instance, Kang Lee, a university dean, explained [note the use of the ‘we’ pronoun here as well]: In China you see poor people, but they don’t worry. You worry too much! You should not worry too much about people’s bad intentions [regarding privacy]. We talk to each other, we share, we are more optimistic. People

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need to talk and share to forget about their worries, like the old women dancing in the square, they dance to share and forget about their problems. We Chinese like togetherness, we like sharing, we travel in groups with friends. You Westerners like traveling alone. (10) Su Kueng, a chief engineer in a state-owned company, also viewed privacy as a Western idea detrimental to patriotism: In European countries, there’s privacy even in your own family, between a sister and a brother. People in the West pay more attention to their family, not the country. In China, if there is a war, the Chinese will come together. Even when they meet for the first time, [Chinese] strangers can become friends. (23) Even Yang Jie, who had taken great pain to explain the historical roots of China’s political system, naturalised privacy as a ‘Western idea’, to which he preferred an essentialised Chinese practicality: Regarding Western ideas, Westerners give more attention to privacy than us Chinese, I think we are more pragmatic in that sense. (12) Ultimately, then, accepting cameras and other forms of surveillance was viewed by some participants as a sign of trust in the government and of love of the country, whereas Westerners’ concerns reflected poorly on the level of trust and cohesion in their societies. Towards the end of our long lunch at his place, Yang Jie summarised this thought somewhat abruptly: I trust my government. And also in the US, if they want your texts [messages], they will get them. Concerns in the West are rooted in the belief that the government is evil. (12) Government as parental protection: surveillance as care

Essentialist comments on the differences between Chinese ‘collectivist’ and Western attitudes were associated with the themes of caring and being cared for, and of protecting and being protected. Several participants discussed Chinese parenting and how protective parents were of their children, even when they were grown-ups. They opposed the Chinese protection that insulates you from having to deal with difficult issues to the Western freedom that is enjoyable yet also means you handle life hurdles on your own. Furthermore, many participants discussed their government as a parental figure, a source of protection and care, to which they owed loyalty. This is in line with other

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scholarly work that notes the moral authority bestowed to the government, which is expected to protect and care for citizens.15 In the individual-state relationship analysed by anthropologist Yunxiang Yan, individual rights are asserted vis-à-vis the market, not the state, and the state is both endorsing these rights and responsible for protecting them.16 Taken together, this train of thought construed surveillance and restrictions to freedom as a form of parental care that people valued. They valued that care all the more than they described their country as chaotic (a major foil I pointed out in Chapter 4), and a strong government as the most robust source of protection against the dreadful chaos. The value of care

In my travels along the Silk Road, I had noticed people caring for one another in ways that were different from my own experiences. An example was the interactions between a man and his elderly mother during a visit to the ruins of the ancient city of Gaochang near Turpan in the Xinjiang Province. The son was taking care of his mother in the scorching sun, handing her water and tissues and readjusting her hat constantly. He was taking dozens of pictures of his mother and doting on her like a parent does with a newborn. The intensity of that care was way beyond the desire to make memories of a special trip with his mother and perhaps showing them off on WeChat, and different from the interactions between adults and their elder parents that I was used to. I was also the beneficiary of care, as some of the colleagues who had invited me to China insisted on organising a student escort for me when I went on errands. I understand that it was a matter of responsibility, but it was more than that, here as well. In Chengdu, two of my colleague’s masters’ students guided me on the subway, holding my arm on the mechanical stair and insisting to carry the books I had bought. They spent a whole morning making sure I was comfortable and had everything I needed, although they were very busy themselves. They also paid for my subway fare, and it took perseverance on my part for them to accept reimbursement via a WeChat transfer. In a word, these young students were mothering me. Reflecting on my own reactions to that mothering, I realised the extent to which I had interiorized the Western norm of self-reliance. Such interactions made me want to learn more about parent–child relationships in China and I started asking questions to my colleagues, interpreters, and participants when the interview allowed for it. In doing so, I went from an abstract understanding that many Chinese parents are very protective of their only child to a concrete realisation of the extent of that protection. By contrast with Western parenting’s push for autonomy, the premise

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in the examples the participants shared was that children were helpless and needed constant supervision. Researcher: What do you think about Taobao’s recommendations? Hsieh Xiaobo: In Australia, my classmates asked me ‘Why do you use Taobao? They know all that you buy’. They really care about their privacy; they need space, one bedroom per person. In China, twelve people live together. Parents prefer to have the kids sleep with them because they may not sleep well, they may have a fever and cough. They can’t look out for themselves. (32) My colleagues explained that grown-ups remain children in the eyes of their parents, although they too protect their parents as best they can. This resonates with the infantilisation of citizens and clients in public education programmes and corporate advertisements that I discussed in Chapter 3. People also happily play with childhood imaginaries when they massively use emojis in their text messages, including work communications. The government as a parental figure

The importance of care and protection and the persisting child status in adult life set the stage for perceptions of the government as a parental figure that offers protection, and to which one is loyal. The importance of familylike care and protection is reflected in the Mandarin word closest to nation, which is guojia. It is comprised of two characters meaning the state (guo) and the family (jia). It does not refer to the people like the word natio does in Latin.17 As Billeter notes, power in China has been constructed as a hierarchical family for 3,000 years. A key feature of the Zhou dynasty’s governance, short before 1,000 bce, was to solidify its alliances by making allies symbolic brothers who acknowledged the king as the older brother. Everyone’s placement over four generations was codified, which is reflected by the existence of different words for older brother (gege) and younger brother (didi), as well as different words for parents in the paternal versus maternal lineage.18 The view of government as protection is also in line with Confucian teachings in which the rulers act as paternalistic caretakers of the population.19 After all, isn’t Xi Jinping affectively referred to as Xi dada (uncle Xi) in China?20 The evocation of the government as a parental figure and of surveillance cameras as protection came forth in many interviews, by people of vastly contrasting socio-economical backgrounds. Figure 6.1 illustrates the words most frequently associated with government, which include parents, children, and protected.

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FIGURE 6.1 Word

cloud on the government, as rendered by NVivo 12

In the words of Tiago, a South American entrepreneur who had lived in China for decades: The government is like a grandparent rather than a parent; they are wise, they wish you well. In China, grand-parents exercise a lot, they do everything for their grand-children, they relocate, for instance. They are very respected. They wish you well, so what can you say to your grandparents? Sometimes they are wrong, but . . . you have loyalty for your grandparents, you don’t question this. So, of course you respect the government! (33) Along these lines, Li Tao, a Shanghai community centre officer, explained why she saw the country (country and government were often used

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interchangeably) as a parent. She was tense and visibly careful, sitting uptight with her coat still buckled up, and her answers were circumvoluted. However, it was clear that she viewed people as children who needed the protection of the government. She started by explaining why the government had invested in many surveillance cameras: Li Tao:

Researcher: Li Tao: Researcher: Li Tao:

Researcher:

Li Tao: Researcher: Li Tao:

The country is like a parent, they want to know the progress of your growth. When you go to some places where they can’t see you, they want to make sure you are in a good place, to check that you’re not ill. Your parents, they want you to grow up happily, healthily. Yet people are adults, aren’t they? They will try their best to build good conditions and a good environment, they want you to grow happy. I understand that for a child, but for an adult? When you grow up, do you think you can escape from your parents? They first give you a safe environment. As we say in China, even though you are 80  years old, you are still your parents’ child. I  understand. [trying to probe how she reconciled the view of citizens as children and the existence of a government] But if everyone remains a child even when they are grown up, what about the people who build this environment, are they children too? When parents get older, there will be new parents. How do these people know what’s good for the country, how do they become a ‘parent’? It’s similar with a country. We also have to change the President. Each President has their own allies and will put forward different policies. It’s like children asking something from their parents, when you grow up you can ask more, when you are small you need to obey. For your family, it’s 18, for the country, at every age you can make requests. [At that point she had grown uncomfortable, and I switched to an easier topic]. (20)

I investigated these ideas further with Ye Lan, a human resources director in a Beijing start-up: Researcher: Some participants told me they view the government as a parent, or a grand-parent. What do you think of this idea? Ye Lan: The government is at some level like a parent or a grandparent. It’s OK, it’s good to have someone looking after you. The government has done many good things to our common people; our common people depend on the government just

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like children depend on parents. Our parents teach us and support us to grow up as adults to make a living for ourselves, so we get benefits from the government. Researcher: Do people see themselves as children of the government? Ye Lan: It is a vivid parallel, yes, at some level. (35) Mo Baozhai, a migrant worker in a Shanghai hair salon, connected the perception of the government as a parent and acceptance of its protection even if it meant restrictions: Mo Baozhai: In the West, for children above 16, parents will let them go outside, have their own life. In China parents don’t. People in the West are more independent. Researcher: Are you saying that in China, people are used to feeling protected? Mo Baozhai: Yes, from birth until you are old, even after you are married. Researcher: Is being protected by cameras like being protected by your parents? Mo Baozhai: There is some relationship, yes, you’re used to being protected. Researcher: [Trying to get deeper answers] Are you saying that people in the West are freer? Mo Baozhai: They are more independent, and freer: if you are not protected by your parents, you need to do things by yourself. Researcher: And yourself, do you prefer to feel protected, or free? Mo Baozhai: On one side I want to be protected, on the other side, I want to be free. When I  am tired, I  want to be protected, when I am not tired, I prefer to be free. Young people want more freedom, because protection brings constraints. Parents want to limit their children: ‘you can’t do this, it’s too late’, ‘it’s not safe, stay at home’. Researcher: [Pushing the logic] So is it to protect you that the government does not want you to read foreign news? Mo Baozhai: I can’t read foreign websites, in my daily life I don’t have the chance to do that. Researcher: [Retreating to safer ground] Do you view the government as a sort of parent? Mo Baozhai: Yes. Maybe foreigners don’t like the government to constrain them. Chinese have been used to constraints for generations, it’s our education, our culture. Researcher: Will it change? Mo Baozhai: Yes, it’s already different for this generation, we work for ourselves, to buy a house, a car. The older generation had their house and job given by the government. We live separately [from family members], we need to earn money. (29)

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Thus, a consequence of perceiving the government as a compassionate protector was the abstract acceptance surveillance (acceptance of the idea of surveillance, as it applies to others) and of restrictions of access to internet websites and social media outside China. This was expressed for instance by Ding Thao, the older repair and maintenance worker and Hsieh Xiaobo, the hotel manager: Researcher: Ding Thao:

What do you think about cameras? If the intention is good, if it is to control, it is OK. If it is to prevent people from bad actions like throwing the garbage or sharing false information on the internet. Researcher: Then the government decides what people do? Ding Thao: [Grinning] This is good. (36) Researcher: I heard someone got fined for using a VPN? Hsieh Xiaobo: Yes, the government does not want people to watch news about Hong Kong. In the West, there is freedom to talk about all topics, but China has a big population. It’s not easy. There are different cities, and our government is doing the right things. Researcher: [Trying to go beyond official rhetoric] Then the government decides for you what is good and what is bad? Hsieh Xiaobo: The government does everything right. [Silence. Seeing that I kept silent too, he added the following as if to nuance his comments] The government is just trying to build a better world. See, for instance, the government expropriates many people to build new buildings. They don’t care about family memories. So, is the government wrong or not is a matter of perspective. (32) Ma Bao, the young auditor, justified the monitoring of Chinese social media and restrictions of access to Western social media by pointing out the flaws of Western liberal democracies. He used the 2016 United States elections as an illustration of a social media issue the CPC had anticipated and lauded indirect voting systems  – in line with the narrative analysed in Chapter  3, that the common people in China were uneducated and had poor ‘moral quality’. While Ma Bao had stuttered in the parts of the interview where he was thinking about his answers on the spot, he delivered the following very fluidly, suggesting that he may have borrowed this rhetoric from CPC meetings and practiced: People disagree on social media. They have different standpoints. People are too influenced by news, and social media. The US election was influenced: it’s very interesting, it set an example for the whole world of how the government should play a role in information supervision

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against fake news. This problem was predicted by our leadership, it’s the reason for blocking some information coming from Western people. The CPC knows people are easily influenced; critical thinking is not an ability that everyone has. The Western world is much influenced by less controlled . . . by lack of supervision. Media is the fourth power. People vote for small things, they heard just one speech, they vote for whoever is good at propaganda. We vote for our representatives at the lower level, we have an indirect way to choose our leaders, it’s a safe way to avoid people who are not capable. And people now are more educated, so it’s more difficult to accept the outcomes of elections. Everyone thinks they are right. Social media gives power to everyone to form a party and gain political power. (25) Furthermore, an interesting correlate of viewing the government as a parent was the perception that it was compassionate. Several participants insisted that the government was treating people well: China has very strong people to people interaction. If you break a rule, we’ll say, ‘please go away, it’s dangerous; have you understood, why do you do that?’ It’s not rigid, not inhuman. (12) The most salient example of this reasoning was the likening of Hong Kong and Taiwan to China’s rebellious children (this came up spontaneously; I never asked about Hong Kong or Taiwan); for instance, Hsieh Xiaobo, a hotel manager: Hong Kong protesters are lost kids. Hong Kong and Taiwan are ungrateful children. These protesters come from troubled families, their parents have divorced, and they have lost hope in the future. They are looking for friendship and warmth in protests, they are being influenced. They are teenagers.  .  .  . Hong Kong and Taiwan are like kids living by themselves. The government has good policies for them, so that they can survive, but now they want to be independent, saying ‘I have no mom, no dad’, it’s a heartbreak. But they’re still your kids, they are young, you still treat them well [note his identification to the government]. (32) China as chaotic; strong government as order

A related and pervasive idea went that the Chinese society is intrinsically unstable, uncivilised, and chaotic. A strong government protects the people

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from the chaos of individual interests and from the greediness of the private markets. Here as well, Billeter’s analysis is helpful: historically, the aristocratic class was united by family ties, codified hierarchies, and shared spiritual rituals; it represented Heaven and the yang, that is stability and order. By contrast, the common people (shumin, shuren) belonged to subordinate social classes diverse in their social institutions, customs, and religious beliefs; they represented Earth and the yin, which is disorder, calling to be organised. Society was framed as intrinsically conflictual, domination needed to reign in conflict.21 Along these lines, Cabestan notes that distrust towards out-group members is strong in China: many Chinese citizens doubt that people will genuinely help one another. Such distrust is regularly fuelled by anecdotes of scams where naïve people are being tricked to help a person and end up being robbed or sued. The distrust, according to Cabestan, is rooted in 30 years of generalised surveillance under Mao and in unregulated economic development that had many businessmen do whatever it took to exit poverty, in the spirit of survival of the fittest.22 So, who can Chinese people trust and turn to for support and protection? They turn to family and local ties – for instance, solidarity between migrant workers coming from the same village, and business networks among people from the same hukou or province. Such solidarity was documented by Patrick Saint-Paul, who was the China correspondent for Le Figaro, a French newspaper, in his intriguing book on the mingongs, the migrant workers of China’s megalopolises who live underground, segregated from the rich cities and invisible.23 And they turn to their government. For instance, Zheng Wang notes that Chinese people, who have had to face numerous earthquakes and deadly floods (the Yellow River 1931 flood killed between 2 and 4 million people) believe that only a strong central government can provide fast and efficient disaster relief.24 This is how many Chinese people turn to their government for protection (for instance, viewing surveillance cameras as improving security), whereas many Westerners seek protection from their government’s gaze. Reflecting these ideas, Peng Shu, an import–export manager who worked between Shanghai and Canada, referred to the multiple crimes against doctors in Chinese hospitals reported in the media and justified acceptance of restrictions to individual and political freedoms because such insecurity, in her eyes, needed to be tamed: Because of everything that’s happened, there are two sides. China does not have human rights and we’re not happy about that. I would like to use Facebook, YouTube, the Western media. But we understand, because the government needs to take strict measures. (51)

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Worries about chaos and greed were particularly marked regarding private companies. There was a sense that markets could not be trusted, because profit-seeking would lead to abuse. In the words of Ma Bao: It’s the responsibility of our government to monitor these companies. It’s difficult for individuals to check data security. It should be solved by some power more [brief silence] how to say [brief silence] that plays a more important role. Our government usually is more proactive in its administration, like data security, national security. It’s riskier to let companies do these things. Companies seek profits. (25) When I  asked participants how they felt about private companies such as Alibaba or Tencent knowing so much about their lives, they argued that these companies needed to be regulated more closely – in other words, if the government controlled these companies tightly, there would be no issue anymore with these companies having their data. Guo Chuntao, a human resource officer in a state-owned company and Liu Liang, a university international office employee, both expressed these ideas of the market being a chaos and the government an adequate protection from it: Many people in China also value privacy but the reality is that privacy is not protected. We need to have better laws. Currently there is no punishment for people who invade our privacy. Our telephone number is exposed in the sun, we can be called by strangers. (38) Liu Liang: We expect they don’t do illegal things. We need legislation to play their part, otherwise the market will be a chaos and people’s data will be collected for illegal use. (7) The greater trust in the government than in private companies is not unique to China; in fact, a survey on a nationally representative sample in the United States found that respondents accepted public officials’ and airlines’ use of invasive technology to ensure people’s safety to greater extents than commercial uses of that technology to target and increase sales.25 Both public- and private-sector participants called for more laws and regulations to control private companies’ use of data: The government should control the managers of these organizations. Companies should be more regulated, it should be stricter. We should have strict rules not to expose people’s privacy, not to intrude into people’s privacy, most organizations have not realized that. The government should do more. (10)

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But I can see now the government is imposing more restrictions on these tech giants in terms of privacy and personal information collection. So, it’s going better. (12) Cameras are good because they capture the fact. But it affects privacy. If the country cares about that, they can make laws to make sure. (19) Harold, the German expatriate in Beijing, also had faith in the government’s ability to prevent private companies’ abuse of data: Here, the government has a roadmap for 20, 30 years. There is no government change, no voting, no steering in different directions, and it’s unbelievably fast. In China, the internet comes with a consistent package: even if your information leaks into WeChat, the government has control over it, they can act. They can’t afford a scandal with WeChat or Alipay. Whereas my Google email is full of spam, there seems to be no way to control that. In China it won’t be openly abused, at least not on the surface. (50) This idea is in line with a 2019 report by Abascus, an English-language news provider covering the China tech industry. The report outlined Chinese citizens’ complaints about the use of facial recognition by Alipay to identify users, even when they had turned off the biometric payment option; it noted that ‘the comment in the thread with the most upvotes  – more than 1,800 – said that people trust government institutions with their data because they can supervise and intervene in their operations. But people are not willing to let oligopolistic companies collect and use their private information’.26 Thus, surveillance was more readily accepted, on the abstract level, when it was orchestrated by the government: see this idea expressed by two stateowned company older employees, Deng Chao, a general manager, and Zhong Li, a female accountant: Deng Chao: It’s OK for companies to know the records of what we buy online, the government will take action to monitor them. The government will do nothing bad to us, they will do everything they can do to monitor these companies, so it’s safe. Researcher: Do you mean you trust the government more than the companies? Deng Chao: First we believe in our government, because the government will protect us. (17) Zhong Li: My first feeling is that CCTV is for our protection. But you have no privacy, you can be seen everywhere.

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Researcher: Personally, I don’t like cameras because I don’t know who is behind them, who sees what is happening. Zhong Li: I  do not have the same feeling than you; who sees it is the government, not individuals. I  would not accept it if it was individuals. (39) Zhong Li’s comment also illustrates the distinction, discussed in Chapter 5, between horizontal privacy towards peers, which is a concern for her, and vertical privacy towards the government, which was not. Tiago, a South American entrepreneur, explained faith in the government by the competence of government officials and their ability to govern based on data and scientific planning: Politicians in China have a very scientific approach. The mayor has a major in physics, only the best students get in government. And they have ambition too: every official wants to go up, climb the ladder. They are well trained, they have worked in the private sector, not like Western politicians who have only known politics. The 5-year plan is not a wish list, they do it. So, yes, the social credit system is going to happen. And alternatives to the Chinese system are not attractive: India does have democracy with 1.2 billion people, but it is under-developed economically. Then think of Trump, and of the Brexit. How many scientists are elected in democracies? Singapore works well but it’s not a democracy either. (33) Thus, trust in the government and the conviction that a strong government is needed to reign in a chaotic society and market were key reasons why the participants accepted the principles of surveillance and restrictions of access to information. Democracy: ‘the government is by the people’

Lastly, a few participants expressed the view that surveillance and internet restrictions were acceptable because the government was by the people. This argument included a range of rational explanations and emotional responses around three important ideas: (a) ‘we love our country and therefore we don’t need to criticise the government’, (b) ‘we have a voice if the government does not work out’, and (c) ‘we can resist if things really don’t work out anymore’. ‘We love our country’

One of the first colleagues I consulted at the start of this research warned me that many people in China were highly patriotic and loyal to the government. Yan Ah Lam worried that ‘because China is a big family, anything that criticises China or the government would raise hostile reactions’. Another colleague, a

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member of the CPC, proudly told me: ‘We run the whole country like a family’. She said it with conviction, conveying that she felt very much in charge. These strong assertions were not only professed by CPC members: for instance, Peng Shu, the import–export manager, had lived in Canada and was intent on showing me that she distanced herself from the CPC and was able to critically examine the Chinese political system. Yet she also claimed love for her country: There’s only one party, so good things, bad things, it’s the Party! But we have one thing in common, we all love our country. By the way, I’m not a communist. (51) The colleague who initially warned me was right. Some of my questions did anger some participants, such as in the incident with Jia Qiang the ex-military bus driver, that I narrate in Chapter 10. Jia Qiang, too, exclaimed: ‘I’m a Chinese, I love my country!’, and took my questions for a criticism of his country. Only one person risked a sarcastic comment on patriotism: Lai Feng, the Shenzen banker whom I talked to on the flight back to Montreal. This was late September 2019, just before the October 1 national holiday and the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. People’s profile pictures on WeChat were all crowded with Chinese flags. He showed me his WeChat Moments and protested: ‘Too many patriots in my moments!’. ‘We have a voice’

A less emotional response pertained to explaining that if the government did not work out anymore, the people had a voice. To follow this line of reasoning, it is important to understand how Chinese people understand democracy. Cabestan explains that democracy, in the mind of many Chinese, means a system in which the government listens to people, that is public policies are aligned with public opinion. This is the Chinese idea of ‘wei renmin fuwu’, meaning ‘power serves the people’. Democracy, therefore, does not necessarily imply that citizens can choose between several candidates who have different political programmes, or that political parties rotate in government according to elections results.27 Indeed, democratic (minzhu) is one of the words identified by Chinese studies professors Kerry Brown and Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova as central in Xi Jinping’s discourse: it refers to the ‘power of the people’, represented by the CPC. Thus, ‘democracy with Chinese characteristics’ redefines democracy against its perceived annexation by Western liberal democracies. By transposing democracy into the Chinese communist context, the party ‘indigenizes’ the term and claims it for itself, pushing back against Western countries’ own definitions.28 Redefining core terms is what International Politics Professor Gerlinde Groitl calls

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‘constructive revisionism’, where the CPC does not just push back against Western democratic and liberal values but also assigns new meaning to them, in a complex ambivalence between particularism and the building of new international order.29 Yang Jie was one of the first to evoke the deep connection of the CPC with the people, and to convey that the government listens to the people instead of ‘bullying’ them as some Westerners may believe: The government is by the people. For instance, Chengdu in the winter is very polluted. We send reports! The government will hear. It’s not ‘I am the government and I give you this policy whether you like it or not.’ The government is from the people, there is constant interaction, it hears the people, and if not, there will be trouble. There are 100 million members of the Party, so with their family, it’s 3000 million: the Party is not separated from the people. It’s not that the government can bully us, ‘let’s make a policy.’ There are the grandparents, the cousins, the Party is deeply connected with the people. I hope you don’t think its’ propaganda. (12) Li Tao, the community centre officer, also emphasised people’s voice: Researcher: What if you have bad parents? Li Tao: You should have the ability to distinguish yourself from your family. [Hesitating]. If there is a disagreement, I think you try to persuade the parents. Parents will understand. Normal people have the ability to distinguish good from bad. Researcher: So, can you also persuade your country [using country as an indirect way to say government]? Li Tao: In China, we have representatives of the people, you can suggest a situation, you can give your voice. China is not an Emperor country, you can say your voice, for yourself and your community. (20) In that sense, then, even the imposition of restrictions by the government may be perceived as a path to freedom, as expressed by Kang Lee the dean: I’m confident. We all want society to develop in the right direction. Every problem has its solution. The government has its own function which is not to spy on people but to give people and companies more freedom. (10) However, some participants showed ambivalence towards the government. For instance, as we were talking informally in the street, one of my interpreters commented:

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My parents’ generation sees Mao as a hero. Our generation is neutral: he maybe has made mistakes but after so much work it’s OK. We have made progress: we have always had a strong government, now it’s owned by the people. Mao has built a new China with the peasants. CPC tells us we all own the country. [She paused, and added the following which seemed to negate all what she said before]. We can vote but we only have one candidate. (56) ‘We can resist’

Moreover, a small minority of participants ventured into discussing counter powers to the government, implying that citizens could choose to resist policies or measures that they did not support. Kang Lee the dean, who talked about rules during the entire interview, also focused on rules when discussing the government. He insisted on no less than the rule of law that is the government submitting itself to a country’s laws (which official speeches and documents routinely call for): The most important thing is the regulations, the government should obey rules. If the government does something bad, we have our own choices. We have our own mechanisms. (10) The most assertive person in this line of thought was Lai Feng, the Schenzen banker, with whom I ventured to ask him if he worried about the government making arbitrary decisions against him or other citizens: Researcher: Crime is punished, I get that. But what about the great Cultural Revolution, if the government decides . . . . those intellectuals were not criminals, right? Lai Feng: It cannot happen as with Mao at that time. There is a balance, like in the United States, a hundred or more families that control the leader. (18) *** In sum, the participants largely expressed support for the government, as well as love, as many equated the government with the country and the country with a big family to which they belonged. The government as protector, giving them hope in the rise of China, was a powerful redeeming narrative. The other important redeeming narrative, which the next chapter analyses, was that of technology as a magic bullet for all of China’s problems.

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Notes 1 Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Demain la Chine: Démocratie ou Dictature? (Paris: Le Débat, Gallimard, 2018). 2 Ibid. 3 Jeremy Goldkorn, Anthony Tao, Lucas Niewenhuis, and Feng Jiayun, October 16, 2019, https://signal.supchina.com/why-chinese-people-dont-hate-their-government/? sfns=mo. 4 Jue Jiang, “The Eyes and Ears of the Authoritarian Regime: Mass Reporting in China,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 51, no. 5 (2021); Andrew Nathan, “China’s Changing of the Guard: Authoritarian Resilience,” Journal of Democracy 14, no. 1 (2003). 5 Kerry Brown and Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping,” Journal of Chinese Political Science 23, no. 3 (2018). 6 Cabestan, Demain la Chine. 7 Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). 8 Eva-Maria Trüdinger and Leonie C. Steckermeier, “Trusting and Controlling? Political Trust, Information and Acceptance of Surveillance Policies: The Case of Germany,” Government Information Quarterly 34, no. 3 (2017). 9 Stéphanie Balme, La tentation de la Chine: Nouvelles idées reçues sur un pays en mutation (Paris: Éditions Le Cavalier Bleu, 2013). 10 Jean-François Billeter, Chine trois fois muette: Essai sur l’histoire contemporaine et la Chine (Paris: Editions Allia, 2016), 120. 11 Ibid. 12 Jean-François Billeter, Contre François Jullien (Paris: Editions Allia, 2017). 13 Kai Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State (New York: Custom House, 2020). 14 Jean-François Billeter, “La Civilisation Chinoise,” in Histoire Des Mœurs (Paris: Folio Histoire Gallimard, 1991). 15 Yunxiang Yan, “The Chinese Path to Individualization,” British Journal of Sociology 61, no. 3 (2010). 16 Ibid. 17 Balme, La tentation de la Chine. 18 Billeter, “La Civilisation Chinoise.” 19 Hannah Rose Kirk, Kangkyu Lee, and Carlisle Micalle, “The Nuances of Confucianism in Technology Policy: An Inquiry into the Interaction Between Cultural and Political Systems in Chinese Digital Ethics,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 35 (2022). 20 Graeme Smith and Louisa Lim, “Xi Dada and Daddy: Power, the Party and the President,” The Little Red Podcast, 2020, podcast audio, https://omny.fm/shows/ the-little-red-podcast/xi-dada-and-daddy-power-the-party-and-the-presiden. 21 Billeter, Chine trois fois muette; Billeter, “La Civilisation Chinoise.” 22 Cabestan, Demain la Chine. 23 Patrick Saint-Paul, Le peuple des rats: Dans les sous-sols interdits de la Chine (Paris: Grasset, 2016). 24 Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation. 25 Sejin Paik, Kate K. Mays, and James E. Katz, “Invasive yet Inevitable? Privacy Normalization Trends in Emerging Technology,” Social Media + Society 8, no. 4 (2022). 26 Xinmei Shen, “Facial Recognition Payment Stirs Up Debate About Online Privacy,” South China Morning Post, 2019, www.scmp.com/abacus/tech/article/3029402/ facial-recognition-payment-stirs-debate-about-online-privacy.

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27 Cabestan, Demain la Chine. 28 Brown and Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping.” 29 Gerlinde Groitl, “China’s Dream: Constructive Revisionism for Great Rejuvenation,” in Russia, China and the Revisionist Assault on the Western Liberal International Order (Cham: Palgrave Studies in International Relations, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

7 TECHNOLOGY AS A MAGIC BULLET

WeChat is in our hearts.

To investigate participants’ imaginaries of privacy and digital surveillance, I chose WeChat as an entry point because it is a core vector of social life in China: WeChat allows people to contact friends on a one-to-one basis as well as create different groups of up to 500 members, in which they can send text, photo, voice and video messages, and initiate audio and video calls.1 The friends’ circle (pengyouquan) function is more granular than Facebook features: it is easier to choose who or which group to post to, and people can also limit their posts to three days or six months, after which the posts are no longer visible.2 WeChat is also an all-encompassing application through which people connect to official accounts (gongzhonghao) of media companies to read the news, and of companies to pay their bills.3 It is a primary source of entertainment, despite the rise of TikTok. Last but not least, it is a payment application very convenient to buy train and plane tickets, hail taxis, transfer money to others, share restaurant bills, screen coupons and offers on retail websites, and more. When discussing WeChat and other digital technology, participants chose strong affective words, such as ‘love’. They showed optimism and almost faith in technology, one of them claiming ‘technology will solve all of China’s problems’. The main pattern that emerged from the data analysis was that participants expected technology to solve the moral shortcomings that created shame and anguish for them: technology would improve people’s ‘moral quality’ by forcing them to follow the rules; it would make

DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-11

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up for past humiliations by modernising the country and uproot secrecy and hidden behaviours. Thus, the ‘technology as a saviour’ narrative, in conjunction with the ‘government as a protector’ narrative, assuaged the moral shortcomings narratives and create the conditions for the principle of digital surveillance to be well accepted. This chapter analyses participants’ discourse on digital technology, from the surface layer of the convenience it brings to every aspect of life, and the love people feel for applications such as WeChat, to deeper layers dealing with issues of secrecy, of morality, and of ‘civilisation’. Convenience in every aspect of life

The first thing the participants mentioned about WeChat was its convenience. From there, they explained how being able to access and pay everything via a smartphone and either WeChat or Alipay saved them time and money, solved every problem, and how they could not envision to live without their smartphone and these applications. The ease of a dematerialised life

Technology facilitates the life of Chinese people in very material and practical ways. For instance, Xiaohan Feng, a multinational HR director I  met in a library in Chengdu, pointed out the lightness (literally speaking) of a dematerialised life: Researcher: Do you still use cash? Xiaohan Feng: No [she smiles]. Coin is too heavy! When I  traveled in Europe and America, my pockets were so heavy. Here I just need the phone, no bag, nothing else. (9) The physical lightness of the phone was viewed as enabling mobility and constant connectivity: At work, for formal matters we use emails. But you can’t take the computer to the toilet. In China people take the smartphone everywhere. (9) In addition, the participants pointed out the immediateness and speed offered by application such as WeChat and Alipay. For instance, buying online through WeChat or Alipay only requires a password, instead of having to enter a name, credit card number, and expiry date. Furthermore, Xiaohan Feng explained that bank account reports are not as detailed as listings of transactions on Alipay, and even if they were, accessing her bank account

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online through logging in on a website with a client number and a password sounded cumbersome in comparison with the one-click access to Alipay: With emails, you have to open the computer, wait, open the mail, wait [she sighs]. Also for payments: I don’t need to check the bank record, which is not easy. I’d have to go to the bank and wait, or go online and enter a password. (9) Efficiency: saving time and money

Saving time was a big theme. Writing text messages or emails can take time in China because people type in pinyin on their alphanumerical keyboards or screens and then select the Chinese characters that are suggested by the applications. Therefore, the use of pictures and emojis is a time saver and is appreciated not just by the young generation. A memorable interview with Deng Chao helped me understand this point. He was a general manager of a real estate company in his fifties and looked stressed out and under pressure. A few minutes into the interview, after several interruptions from his subordinates knocking on his office door, he locked us up inside the office. He explained he rarely used a computer anymore, and I could see, indeed, that his large office computer was turned off: To not have to write words, but instead just solve a problem by sending a picture, is the best feature. (17) In the large Chinese megalopolises, the smallest errand may imply being stuck in a traffic jam, travelling for long periods of time in crowded buses or subways, and bearing long waits at service counters. Technology facilitates daily life in that it may save people the trouble to run the errands, and even enable them to not owe a car: It’s cheaper online, for instance the fruits. Carrefour has a shop on JinDong [a large online retailer, also known as JD.com], they have a one-hour delivery. It’s good in big cities, it’s better to use Didi [the taxi application] and deliveries than to buy a car or use crowded transportation. (49) The efficient system of fast and inexpensive door delivery makes a physical trip to a shop seem effortful, and therefore, many people prefer to buy online, even for the products that are considered private (that is, as we have seen, potentially shameful), such as medication: I buy everything online, also medicine because they are screened and delivered in 20 minutes. (43)

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Buying online not only saves time but also money because platforms such as Alipay only charge the goods when people receive them, instead of when they order for them; in addition, people with a good credit score on the platform are refunded immediately when they return a product, without having to wait for the seller to receive the returned product. Most participants were of the mind that you could simply not live without a smartphone. A smartphone guarantees constant availability to others, and applications and electronic payments are indispensable for everyday life  – even very poor migrant workers and beggars often own smartphones. In the words of an older female and a younger male university employees: If I’m without my phone, I might miss important messages I should have replied to sooner. And there’s another important feature which is payment. I need it. (13) I think it is a necessity for modern people, for modern Chinese people, to communicate. It’s very convenient, yeah, convenience is the first thing, for using WeChat, because it brings the world to you. You can read breaking news from WeChat, you can see what’s happening around you, locally and globally, there´s a lot of news agencies, newspapers you can subscribe to, so I can learn a lot from WeChat. And everyone has got a smartphone. Just like many people say, smartphones are the longer arms of people, so you can’t live without a smartphone, and WeChat is the most important app in the smartphone. (7) Technology was seen as efficient not just for people: it was also seen as helpful for the government to reduce policing costs: Cameras are an easy way for the government, you don’t need so many policemen. It’s an efficient way. One of my roommates, she is in ­government, her job is to promote the law with people in the neighbourhood. (28) Convenience over privacy

Convenience trumped privacy concerns for most participants. In fact, some of them did not even mention privacy among the potential disadvantages of such an extensive daily use of technology; even Tian Haimeï, who was a faculty in the United States at the time I interviewed her, did not raise this issue: Researcher: What do you use WeChat for? Tian Haimeï: Normally I use it if I want to purchase something online in China, some e-books, I have to use WeChat pay to do that, or transfer money to my mom, send her a red packet. Oh that’s

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another function! On Mother’s Day, on birthdays, and for the lunar festival, the people will just give senior people red packets for good luck and fortune, and that’s a very useful function. Researcher: What are the advantages and disadvantages of WeChat? Tian Haimeï: I  don’t think there are disadvantages. I  know people use it for more purposes, they pay their rent, their gas, their smartphone bill. I don’t see any disadvantages. As for the advantages, it’s very fast, it’s easy, I think I just can get things done more efficiently. (6) Others chose to ignore privacy issues: I know there are cookies, you leave traces with online shopping, but I can’t do anything about it. It’s really convenient, there’s the temptation of convenience, I choose to sacrifice privacy. (41) Xiaohan Feng: If I pay with the phone, I have discounts with the MRT [the metro], and the bus. Researcher: If you were to do something you should not, would that be a problem, would you use cash instead? Xiaohan Feng: No. I  still want to use WeChat or Alipay, because it’s the easy way. (9) Several participants worked in the IT industry, and I was curious to see if they would hold different attitudes. While some did, others still embraced technology: Ye Lan:

I work in an IT company, the company does nothing harmful. I trust them, they won’t harm me. The convenience of receiving recommendations is greater than the risk. Researcher: But you know that Facebook, for instance, is said to have sold customers’ data? Ye La: Convenience is greater than the danger. (35) Indeed, choosing to protect one’s privacy by using cash to pay, or hailing a cab on the street rather than booking a Didi cab on the application, sounds very effortful. Even Han Dongmei, a young Chinese woman who had lived in Germany and had read the Western media’s Orwellian accounts of the social credit system in China, shunted that kind of effort: Researcher:

Your searches online leave traces.

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Han Dongmei: I never thought of that . . . [she sounds surprised] I think it’s . . . normal! Even in Germany, on eBay, or if I search on Amazon, I receive ads. Researcher: But in China, if you use Didi for instance, your trips can be traced as well. Han Dongmei: What should I  say? It’s very convenient, it saves a lot of time, and money. Didi is cheaper, you can share rides. They know where I live, where I go, it’s true, but it’s OK. (49) The potency of convenience is well illustrated in the following story. Hu Lei, a talented young manager, had just left Baidu for a competitor, in violation of her contract. She had gone a long way to prevent Baidu from finding out she was employed in this other company, using a fake identity at the other company, having her teammates calling her by a fake name and hiring the services of a company who specialised in concealing employees’ breaches of non-competition clause by registering them with shell companies instead of their real employers. She was very aware of the many ways in which Baidu could trace her. Despite all this, she still used Xiadou Zaijia, Baidu’s equivalent of Alexa, at home, just because it made it easier to turn on a TV programme: Hu Lei:

I  have Baidu’s Xiadou Zaijia at home, and when it is on, if I say ‘toilet paper’, I’ll see recommendations for toilet paper on Jindong and Taobao. Researcher: So, it’s true that the phone listens? Hu Lei: It’s true. Even though they say they don’t proactively monitor you, they do. I  have that at home, but I  try not to talk about work. My kids like it, [in order] to watch Peppa Pig. It’s convenient: when my mom holds the babies, she can just say, ‘open Peppa Pig’. (47) Although convenience was a big part of the participants’ positive response to technology, this response was not just practical. When they discussed WeChat, Alipay, and the other platforms, their face lightened up and they talked not just of comfort but, interestingly, of love. Love of technology Strong emotions

Picture a very young man walking along a pond covered in water lilies on the old campus of a Chengdu university. When I ask him why WeChat is so

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successful in China, and perhaps even more so than Alipay whose social features lag, he comes to a halt, brings both hands to his heart, smiles brightly and exclaims: ‘WeChat is in our hearts’. The relationship that the participants had with WeChat was very different from the relationship that most users in other countries have with, say, Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp. The latter, even those who check their phones a hundred times a day, have a more instrumental than affective relationship to social media. When a platform falls in disgrace, users migrate to other platforms (for instance, when WhatsApp’s rumoured change of privacy policy triggered an exodus to Signal and Telegram in January 2021, particularly in India). However, Chinese users have an emotional response to WeChat. For instance, Jin Shan, a construction worker, said that WeChat and TikTok were great for entertainment and talked of the ‘joy’ and the ‘fun’ they brought him. Tang Zi, a young personal assistant to a CEO, simply stated: ‘Douyin [TikTok] is a magical place’. Moreover, they explained that using these platforms created happiness for their loved ones too. The following excerpt by Tian Haimeï exemplifies the coexistence, in participants’ discourse, of the pragmatic argument of convenience and of another more affective argument: Tian Haimeï: When my mom needs something I  can purchase it for her quickly, and have this red packet to make my mom happy and my dad happy, and that’s the part I like, because without WeChat I  don’t know how I  can give them red packets or transfer them some money when they need it. Researcher: You’re using very affective words! Tian Haimeï: Yeah, yes, I love that part. (6) Many people embraced the use by e-commerce platforms of their purchase history and searches to push product recommendations, coupons, and advertisement to them. They went beyond stating they did not mind and, instead, argued they benefited from these recommendations because they learned from them. For instance, a middle-aged compliance manager shared: Taobao’s [Alibaba] recommendations are sometimes very silly, I told them not to push this product and they still do. But the advantages are greater than the disadvantages: I  learn from these apps, for instance regarding make up, I try new things, I watch the KOL [Key Opinion Leaders] real time shows, and I save time. (30) When I pointed out that the merchants’ recommendations were based on their buying history and online searches, most participants laughed and expressed no discomfort. On the contrary, some joked that these platforms knew them better than they knew themselves. Many, such as Tang Zi, really liked that

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the recommendations eased the burden of making choices and decisions, even regarding the books she read. She loved and trusted ‘the system’ and wished it was more generalised: Researcher: When you buy online, you leave many traces. Tang Zi: It’s OK, it’s better to record my purchases, so I can know what I need [sic]. If I search Taobao [Alibaba], for instance, they give me cloth recommendations, I like that. I use a reading app. My husband says the app takes your personal data; he is more serious than me about that. But I like it. They introduce the books, so I can see if I’m interested, it saves me time. Researcher: Then the app knows what you read. Tang Zi: It’s OK. It’s better to record that, so I can know what I need. Researcher: Are you saying it’s OK that the system chooses for you? Tang Zi: I accept that. The data are helpful. If the system thinks it is not necessary that I buy this book because I don’t need to spend the time and energy, I  can accept that. I  don’t mind. If you and I had a chip inside us, now, we could scan it and exchange information on what we like, it would help us to know each other. Researcher: [in shock] Isn’t this a bit scary? Tang Zi: I accept that. I like it, it saves time and I get recommendations from big shops, high-quality products, and I get discounts. (27) Another facet of love for technology in the participants’ discourse was anthropomorphism. When Peng Shu, an import–export manager in her fifties, narrated how she had been warned for jaywalking, she described a ‘robot voice’ (while there is no actual robot issuing these warnings), and, what’s more, a compassionate gentle robot voice: At one time, in Shanghai, I was crossing the street from the office to the metro. You’re supposed to stop at the red light. I  heard a robot voice, I didn’t know where it came from. It was very soft, saying ‘you’re breaking the law, please step back’. It repeated this gently, very gently. (51) She explained that the warning had not been a bad experience after all, since the voice was so gentle. It was as if that form of surveillance and potential punishment were acceptable because they were technology-mediated embodiments of the government’s benevolent protection. I also wondered if robots, in the Chinese imaginary, may be perceived as less frightening and threatening than in the North American or European imaginaries. For instance, Liu Cixin, a renowned science fiction master who authored the celebrated trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past (also known as Three-Body), depicts

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Intellectra, the android sent on Earth by a more technologically advanced civilisation, as a sophisticated and gentle young woman who is versed in the rituals of the tea ceremony. As this question well exceeds the scope of this book, I will let Chinese science fiction experts4 consider it if they wish to. Technology optimism

A correlate to loving technology was an impressive optimism. In the most recent data of the World Values Survey, a cross-cultural study of 49 countries, China ranked first on an index measuring optimism in science and technology. The index includes statements such as ‘Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable’, ‘Because of science and technology, there will be more opportunities for the next generation’, and the question ‘All things considered, would you say that the world is better off, or worse off, because of science and technology?’5 Likewise, several scholars note that Chinese respondents are typically techno-optimists in surveys: for instance, they tend to associate facial recognition technology with improved security, efficiency, and convenience.6 A robust trust in humanity’s ability to ‘master’ technology if it ever turned out to produce undesirable effects was very salient in the participants’ answers: Humans are intelligent, we can control AI. Technology does more good than harm. We invented nuclear weapons; have we been wiped out? No. I am confident. Every problem has its solution. AI is good, see for instance the translation apps. We need to keep a balance, we should try to control it. (10) In the West, it’s: ‘don’t do that, let’s think about it’. In China, it’s: ‘let’s do it, and oh, there is a problem, let’s see’. I know voices in the West say that AI is not good. We don’t know yet, let’s try it. If it’s bad, we’ll stop it. (12) This optimism pertaining to technology was framed as a reflection of a broader Chinese attitude towards life, and served to disqualify Western concerns about privacy invasions. Note the moral undertone in the use of ‘should’ in these two excerpts: It’s no use to worry. We should think towards optimism, we need to be more optimistic, or we should stop using it, completely shut it down. (13) For any tool in our life, I care most about the advantage of the app. We should accept the disadvantage, ignore the negative.  It’s good to our use. (17)

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Only one person, a transportation engineer in a state-owned company, pointed out potential issues with technology, in a more circumspect statement: Too much technology can become extreme. It has contributed a lot but maybe in a few years it will not be a good thing anymore. (23) The moral function of technology

There was more than convenience and love in participants’ narratives on technology. When I asked whether the social credit system could make mistakes and incorrectly undermine someone’s reputation, several participants agreed that it may indeed imply some collateral damage, which they termed ‘zigzags’. But they also stated that these zigzags were acceptable, provided that the overall objectives were attained: Liu Liang:

Now China is establishing the credit system, it has centralised data in different sectors, like traffic, transportation, the banks. It works, it’s a good thing. It is a process of modernization. It’s a sign of development. Researcher: Let’s hope the system does not make mistakes! Liu Liang: I’m not sure whether or not there will be mistakes in that score. But the direction should be right, the track should be right, even if there are some . . . zigzags . . . even if we have troubles, if the direction is correct and we follow the track, the final destination will be right. (7) When we discuss gains and losses, the important thing is to develop in the right direction. (10) This idea of ‘the right direction’ resonates with the moral quest for civilisation that I analysed in Chapter 4. Quite tellingly, the word cloud on technology in NVivo, shown in Figure 7.1, presents an alignment of the words ‘tech’, ‘saves’, and ‘China’. Indeed, many research participants viewed technology as a vector of civilisation, holding promises of safety, morality, and modernity. Technology is the ultimate tool to suppress secrecy

In participants’ discourse, the key mechanism that enabled technology to moralise society was to suppress secrecy. Cameras, in particular, were perceived as combatting secrecy because participants believed they made things

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FIGURE 7.1 Word

cloud on technology, as rendered by NVivo 12

visible and recorded the ‘evidence’, also termed the ‘truth’ (note the singular in these words; there was no questioning that ‘evidence’ may be complex or that there may be several lenses through which to comprehend the ‘truth’). Thus, cameras tackle one of the main issues we have analysed in Chapter 5, which is the centrality in Chinese society of saving face through concealing and strategically choosing what one shows. Since such hiding is associated with bad moral intentions and poor moral quality, cameras were viewed as a relevant solution: A very organized society also needs regulations, not just written policies but also corroborating evidence: cameras provide that evidence. (20) Cameras are good [in order] to monitor, they can record everyone’s behaviours, so if something is not explained, the cameras can tell you the truth. (22)

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Accordingly, Jia Qiang, an ex-military bus driver, attributed insecurity in Western countries to a deficit of cameras: There are problems in the West because there are no cameras: when they are accidents, in China, the police can know. It can save people’s lives. (40) So did Luó Wen, a PhD student in a United States university, who planned on returning to China after she graduated: Yeah, the biggest advantage is that you feel you can be safe, safer than in the US, because in the US there is not much gun control, especially if you go to places where there are not many people, you worry about your safety. But in China you know most places have CCTV; then you know you are safe, or safer than other places. (5) The participants appreciated not only the fact that crimes or offenses could be investigated retrospectively but also the prevention promises of technology, such as preventive policing conducted by robots. If they expressed any criticism, it was that they wished the technology became more effective: The police robots at the shopping mall can identify emotions: if someone is suspicious, they will warn people to be careful, the police can assess the situation and give feedback to the robots. It’s a good thing, but the technology is not mature, the robot is not so smart, I saw that someone kicked the robot and it could do nothing. (27) Indeed, Chinese citizens can be quite critical of technology when it does not work as intended. For instance, Jeff Ding, an expert in the Chinese AI industry who provides well-informed digests and translations in the ChinAI newsletter, reported a series of mocking jokes and memes about AI failures. One image showing that a system had identified someone pictured on a bus advertisement as a suspected lawbreaker was viewed more than 100,000 times and triggered many amused comments.7 The moral beliefs underlying the widespread support for cameras were that cultivating secrecy and privacy were indications of bad intentions and that cameras enabled parental figures such as the government, employers, or teachers to know everything: in these narratives, a clear-cut contrast was expressed between hiding and knowing. Knowing was desirable for parental figures to educate the culprits and raise their moral quality. It was also desirable for those who thought they behaved well, because they could be rewarded. This is in line with other scholarly work that notes citizens support the social credit system because it showcases that they have nothing to hide: ‘Good, righteous citizens welcome the arrival of the system rewarding them for such behavior. The opposite of having behaviors to hide, these citizens consider their behaviors better to be known’.8

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The value of knowing was, for instance, recognised in schools. I  asked participants what they thought of the schools piloting emotion recognition cameras to recognise students’ attention level, mood (e.g. bored), and emotions (e.g. happy, angry) in order to report them to the teacher9: [Emotion-recognition] cameras in schools are OK. It’s not a problem that teachers know that students are not focused, it can help students to listen carefully and study hard. (36) It helps to capture students’ states, to manage students, to let teachers know that this student is in a special state. It’s good, it’s a convenient service. It’s like telemedicine, technology that scans your heart and projects it to the doctors so they can diagnose. (41) Likewise, Deng Chao, a manager in a state-owned real estate company, thought it was legitimate for the government to ‘know’; the way he kept repeated this word helped me understand its connection with the view of privacy as the concealment of shameful thoughts and behaviours (see Chapter 5). In sum, the promise held by technology is to make citizens visible to authorities and thus replace secrecy with ‘knowledge’: Deng Chao: It’s normal that your transactions are recorded. Previously, we had bank accounts and it was OK; why bother now? Researcher: Well, the difference is that previously, we also paid in cash; whereas now, everything is recorded. Deng Chao: Before technology, yes, we used cash and it saved our privacy, but it’s acceptable to record that: the government and the companies need to know the records. It’s good for the government to know people’s expenses, their standards of living, so they can improve our life. As ordinary civilised people, we know the government knows what we are buying. The government can use the data to make better policies. The government should know what is going on in the country. (17) A vector of civilisation

Making things visible, thus, was expected to lead to greater morality, a pillar of the Chinese dream of building up greater levels of civilisation. Akin to the narratives gathered by cybercrime scholar Claire Seungeun Lee on the social credit system, in which participants wrote that people would improve their

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behaviours if they knew they were being scored,10 the participants believed that visibility would enhance individual moral quality: Cameras can change impolite behaviours: for instance, people throwing the garbage, stealing. (21) Surely, it will help us to behave well. In Chengdu, there are many traffic cameras, it helps us to avoid . . . it helps us to make our behaviour decent. (17) People behave better when there are cameras, it makes them more civilised. (7) Cameras were viewed by some almost as a crutch for people who lacked education, as a temporary tool that was needed in the meantime, as the government was striving to lift rural areas out of poverty and of a moral state considered as uncivilised: Most cameras are in Shanghai, Beijing, not so much rural areas, it’s to ensure safety and to protect the good ones. (30) The idea of technology as a vector of civilisation was also expressed at the societal level: not only did technology hold the promise of making people behave better but also it was the pathway to a more ‘developed’ society: Rén Xian:

The privacy . . . the non-disclosure of personal information is very difficult to realise in China. If the disclosure of our information can promote social development and make the society better, it’s OK to provide this information. . . . Now our government, the whole society pays attention to Big Data. Big Data statistics can help in a good way to develop society [she laughs happily]. Researcher: So, do you mean you are volunteering your data to help the development of society? Rén Xian: Yes. (13) Researcher: What do you think of the blacklists? Ding Thao: They are really good. There are many kinds of people, so you can’t guarantee that everyone will be well behaved. Some years ago, on the train, I used to see many people who slept on two seats, and they were smoking; now it’s better. Some people take off their shoes, it smells bad, people behave badly, and

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Researcher: Ding Thao:

Researcher: Ding Thao:

the regulations of the blacklist are good, it can help people to behave better. It’s safer for other passengers. In a way, then, technology helps society? Exactly! Advanced technology can really help society because it’s less expensive to use technology to monitor people than humans, the cost is lesser. Do you see any disadvantages of technology? If I must say something negative, I’ll say radiations will make us unhealthy. The more advanced the technology, the more advanced the society, the better the economy. (36)

Moreover, Qiu Chu Hua, a Mandarin teacher, pointed out the huge contributions of cameras and facial recognition to safety. She insisted that safety was more important than privacy because the crimes that were committed in the absence of efficient policing were very serious, such as child theft. Note the use of the pronoun ‘we’ in ‘we find the children’, even though only the police can access the databases where children’s faces are stored: Privacy is not the priority in China. People steal children. Many Chinese can’t have children, but we like having descendants, that’s the culture. So, there are baby thefts, in the hospital, even on the streets. They take them far away, in the mountains. Now there is a [web]site, it’s not for people, it’s for the police only. If your child is lost, you call the police, they go to this site, and with the cameras we find the children. (53) She went on to give me another example of how cameras contribute to families and society: My grand-father, he was confused, he got lost, he wanted to walk alone and he got lost. We called the police several times to find him. But the cameras are not everywhere, in the villages there are places where there are none. Once, he walked to a village, fell asleep in the rain in the fields, but we found him anyway. There are more advantages to cameras than disadvantages. (53) Technology will give China its due place in the world

The promise of technology as a force of moral development mattered because such development could propel China on its quest to revive its previous glory. Sinologist Anne Cheng, who teaches at Collège de France, notes that science and technology have been associated with modernity and progress in the Chinese imaginary since the 19th century.11 Indeed, in their responses, the participants often compared China’s technology with that of ‘the West’, which they used as a standard of modernity and civilisation.

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Catching up with and surpassing the West

The comparison with the West was somewhat paradoxical: on the one hand, participants argued that Chinese technology was borrowing from the West, when such logic served to legitimate its use. On the other hand, they pointed out how Chinese technology surpassed that of the West. The legitimising comparison was mostly used concerning the social credit system, which several participants said originated in the credit scores that had existed for a long time in Europe and North America. It was expressed, for instance, by Hong Tao, who held a master’s degree and worked as a sales manager for large accounts at a major Chinese IT company: Hong Tao:

They expand the scope of credit, it’s in the beginning stage. I just heard they include information on water payments, electricity fees, red light violations, traffic rules, maybe they connect these records. And individual commercial behaviours, when you register a company, or invest in a company. It’s related to your reputation. It will have consequences for individuals. Researcher: What kind of consequences? Hong Tao: To my knowledge, the consequences are whether or not you can borrow money, find a job, make collaborations with others, because the record will be made public, as evidence. This is what China has done to learn from Western countries. Researcher: Hum? Hong Tao: I  don’t know clearly about the score in the West. The credit system is developing in that direction. (42) Indeed, Xinyuan Wang’s ethnography on the use of digital devices in Shanghai documents the widespread belief that Western societies are ‘civilised’ precisely due to their long-existing credit system. She noted that this idea is perpetuated in the media by a series of myths and invented stories.12 Of course, arguing that the system borrows from the West served to rebut Westerners’ concerns or denounced them as hypocrite, in line with the rhetoric that Western governments use their supposedly universal values to constrain China in a strategic way (see Chapter 4). This argument of course confuses financial credit scores such as Alipay’s, which resembles those of Western banks and credit score agencies, with the broader social credit systems that are being tested and include other types of data such as behavioural data; this distinction was far from clear for most participants. Second, China’s pioneering technological advances were a source of pride for the participants because missing the technological revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries and being labelled the ‘sick man of Asia’ remain a shame for many Chinese citizens, as we have discussed in Chapter 4. By contrast, being a leader in electronic payments, social media, and AI was perceived as a

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clear sign that China had more than made up for these delays, which ensured a brighter future. As a foreign informant explained: The cause of the Great Cultural revolution was that China had missed the industrial revolution and had fallen behind in technology, like Russia. That’s why the government is investing so much in technology and getting ahead, to never fall behind again because the consequences are terrible. (33) Several participants were particularly proud that China seemed to be more advanced than Western countries regarding some technologies. This excerpt is from a young secretary who had prepared notes for our interview and gave me a brief lecture before I could start: Four things are great about technology: Online payments, that’s very convenient, and fast; High-speed trains, they cover two thirds of the country, WeChat Pay, and Alipay. It’s not available in other countries, it’s available for us. It saves us a lot of time, no cash is needed. (16) This other excerpt is by a participant living who had gone studying in the United States and had returned home after more than a year of absence; she was impressed by the rapid development of payment technologies: They all use the IScan, the QR scan, and they click and oh, man, that just went so fast, I could not believe it, I was very . . . that was very amazing.  .  .  . Two years ago, that’s the first time I  went back to China and experienced a reverse culture shock. When you go to the farmers’ market you can use WeChat Pay, everyone has their code, their QR code, wow, that’s just fantastic. (6) Technology as an opportunity to escape poverty

Another way in which technology was viewed as building the Chinese dream was that it could offer opportunities to develop a business, or to become famous in a short amount of time, like influencers on the internet are: On Douyin [TikTok], anyone can be popular, and you can have an income from it, for instance my gym coach posts videos and people come to him, it’s better for the business. (15) Low-income people use WeChat to draw attention, as an opportunity to become famous and rich, or launch a business. (55)

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Since poverty is often associated with a shamefully low level of civilisation, escaping poverty was also seen as bettering oneself. In the words of Hu Lei, an HR officer who had just left Baidu, technology brings hope to people, to the extent that some drop out of school (as famous United States entrepreneurs have done!), and it shapes the distribution of opportunities in China: Technology has changed the distribution of wealth in China. Technology has reconstructed Chinese economy. People have seen you can become a billionaire in one night; this phenomenon had made Chinese people more anxious and eager about money. It has influenced Chinese education deeply. Some people believe they can leave school. IT circles have changed wealth distribution, because the pay in the IT industry is now higher than in finance. Middle managers in BAT [Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent] make more than 1 million, 2 million yuans [approximately 150,000 to 300,000 USD], and there are thousands of them. (47) The creation of these new IT elites, in turn, may consolidate the CPC’s hold on power because these elites depend on privileges and protections granted by the Party to the large technology companies of China.13 The darker side of technology: opacity

If nearly all participants embraced technology for their own use and that of the government, several pointed out that they were in the dark regarding how exactly it was used, and even what were the boundaries of authorised versus prohibited personal use. A certain degree of opacity has been a trademark of the CPC that Jean-Pierre Cabestan goes as far as to describe as a secret society.14 Indeed, the interpreters explained I should not ask my participants whether they were CPC members or not; they preferred to inquire about that indirectly because this information was sensitive as there were ‘resistance’ calls to leave the CPC (for instance, the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement born in qigong exercise groups, frames the CPC as an ‘evil party’15). Along similar lines, Jean-François Billeter explains that the opacity of regulations and laws serves to maintain control over institutions and citizens: the absence of guarantee regarding what is allowed versus punished is a convenient tool to foster caution.16 Sometimes, citizens do not even know without a doubt that they have been punished. For instance, I  was told how a dean learnt one day that the university was facing space restrictions and he had to give up his large and prestigious office and accept a much smaller one. The dean suspected that he had been reported but did not know that for a fact, or what he may have been reported for.

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Regarding technology, the theme of opacity was a minor theme compared to those of convenience, love, optimism, and morals. However, it was present, for instance, regarding social media, where contents likely to be censored were unclear: Researcher: Sometimes, on Facebook, there are many political posts. Is it the same on WeChat? Luó Wen: Oh, I guess it’s kind of sensitive, like people don’t post political things there [nervous laughter], sometimes it will be blocked if you say certain things there. Researcher: Have you had your posts blocked? Luó Wen: Oh, that’s a good question  .  .  . not very often, just once or twice. Researcher: How do you know it’s blocked? Luó Wen: Certain words you can’t say, I heard people say that they just can’t send certain words to other people, they can’t send a certain picture, because that touched on sensitive topics. We don’t know, they have a certain bank of sensitive topics and sometimes they block, so you don’t know, and you realise ‘oh I can’t send this thing out’. Or it will be deleted later and that will tell you, yeah. Mostly, there are some official accounts and their articles will be blocked or deleted later, sometimes when you click that article you can’t see it, it’s been removed already. Very often, actually, that is more often, yeah. (5) Virtual private networks were another unclear boundary: while it was officially forbidden to use a VPN to access websites that you could otherwise not access from China, it was widely believed that the practice was tolerated. At the same time, the media advertised how some people received fines after using a VPN. At any rate, nobody knew for sure what the punishment for using a VPN could be: A man in Suzhou used a VPN to check overseas news, he was punished with 2000 yuans [approximately 300 USD]. Maybe he did some bad things, the news did not say if he did bad things. It becomes more difficult, the free ones don’t work, it’s been a problem, recently. (28) Researcher: What about VPNs, do many people use them? Paul: VPNs are blocked during Chinese holidays, so the government is very good at blocking them. But it’s all very fuzzy, everything is gray, as if you had blinders. One moment they let it all pass, then one day, boom, they tighten up, then it’s all good again. They tell you ‘this is China’. The students all have a VPN, they are not afraid. We do not know the consequences of using a VPN. (11)

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Even the giant Alipay was not safe from this opacity. Peng Shu was worried about entrusting her savings to Alipay rather than a traditional Chinese bank: My only concern [with WeChat and Alipay] is financial, because these sites also propose investment services and I am not sure if they are legal. Maybe, some day, the government says it’s illegal. If Zhifu [Alipay] breaks up with the government and the government says they compete with the banks, I can lose my investment there. (51) Naturally, the social credit system was the technological feature which was the opaquest in participants’ minds. Participants were only sure that the following elements were included in their social credit scores: their financial credit (mostly, whether they repaid their Alipay credit amount and other bank loans on time and paid their bills) and their driving behaviours: Deng Chao: I don’t know the exact details. What I know is that if you borrow money, you need to return it. Researcher: What impacts the score, besides money and driving? Deng Chao: There is a transportation score, but I don’t know if it’s associated with the social score. Researcher: I heard that if you do good things, such as volunteering, your score could go up? Deng Chao: I don’t know if it works like that. (17) I heard about the social credit system. It’s not clear if it is expanding the financial score, for instance whether you pay your phone bills, or your community service for your home. I have not heard about a wider range of behaviours. (38) Whether the social credit scores included other behaviours such as drinking or watching video games (as indicated by some executives of the private companies who ran the first pilots), or someone’s posts and searches on WeChat, was also unclear: Lo Weiyuan: It’s not just criminal records, it’s other things but I  am not sure about that. It can include your debit record, fines from the police, and the social taxes you pay. Researcher: Some say it includes behaviours such as drinking alcohol or playing video games? Lo Weiyuan: Many gaming websites ask you to register with your ID, I don’t know if it’s related. (26) Researcher: Some say it includes behaviours such as drinking alcohol, playing video games, or watching pornography?

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Tang Zi:

Researcher: Tang Zi:

Researcher: Tang Zi:

I  don’t know, it is not reasonable for me that my personal credit score is decided by this type of action, because I don’t know how the system operates. Are you saying that right now the system does not include these behaviours? I don’t know what score I got. As I know, the social credit system, it’s not true that these things influence my score. [Long silence] In my understanding, the social credit system targets trust problems [my interpreter adds that trust problems refer to bad driving, or the sale of fake products on the internet] rather than criminal behaviours. The social credit system is separated from the police system. Sorry. [Silence again]. Would you say that Chinese people don’t have much information on the social credit system? Yeah, because I don’t know much how this social credit system is operating and how we will be scored, yeah. (27)

The participants living overseas did not muster a clearer picture of what was being built: Researcher: Luó Wen:

Do you know if you have a social credit score? I  think they are still experimenting with this, in my hometown, I don’t think they have that score for everyone . . . but maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know [embarrassed laugh]. (5) Researcher: Do you know if you have a social credit score based on what you post and read on WeChat or other things? Tian Haimeï: I just heard that, I was shocked! That was coming out just last month I think, I . . . it’s quite new, I want to know more this summer. But I had no idea that WeChat could be linked with the social credit system. Researcher: OK, so you don’t know if you have a social credit score? Tian Haimeï: I’ve heard about the social credit system, but I  don’t know about WeChat . . . or if it is linked with behaviours . . . or what we are dealing with. (6) The confusion expressed by these participants echoes research by sociologist Jean-Louis Rocca who probed his network in China and reported that most people confuse the social credit system with either Sesame Credit, the financial score given to users of Alibaba’s Alipay application, the blacklists of debtors such as the one published by the Bank of China.17 Likewise, only 11 per cent of a 2019 survey respondents who lived in one of a municipality that had a government-run social credit system were aware that they

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were part of a local government pilot scheme; the proportion rose to 19 per cent among CPC members. Some respondents believed their score was based solely on online shopping and mobile payments while others thought that their Sesame Credit scores were influenced by the scores of their friends.18 Interviews conducted in 2021 and 2022 confirmed this deficit of awareness and confusion between different types of credit systems.19 More generally, citizens lack knowledge regarding the possible use of the social credit system for political control and repression of protesters and activists, in part because the state media offer a positive narrative on the social credit system and in part because repression by lowering credit scores is less visible than physical repression sending citizens to jails.20 A recent case study of a municipal social credit system offers an interesting explanation as to why most people do not understand how the system works. In this city, local officials carefully managed political risks at different levels of governance. They needed to conform to top-level plans and thus implemented a social credit system with brio, designing 189 factors assessing people’s social integrity, classified into six categories. However, they worried about citizens’ resentment if they deducted points and divided people in different categories. Therefore, the system in place, in that city, did not do much and was not publicised.21 It existed but was mostly kept inactive.

BOX 7.1  SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE REDEEMING NARRATIVES A third (35 per cent) of the research participants spontaneously evoked the narrative of a strong government as a guarantee of order and stability; this narrative was more common among men, more educated participants, those who worked in a multinational company, who had had international exposure and were CPC members. The view of the government as a parental figure (19 per cent of the interviews) was more salient among less educated participants, those without international exposure, and again CPC members. The narrative that the government is ‘by the people’ (12 per cent of the interviews) was more developed among CPC members and participants working in the public sector, who can be considered as having greater political capital than other participants.22 Overall, about two-thirds (65 per cent) of the research participants expressed very positive views of technology. The more salient themes were convenience (41 per cent of the interviews), the perception of technology as a vector of development and civilisation (33 per cent of the interviews), and love of technology (22 per cent). The more enthusiastic were employees of

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state-owned companies and multinational companies (compared with other public- and private-sector employees), as well as participants with no international exposure. Men and women equally viewed technology as positive, as well as participants of all ages including participants over 50. The narrative of technology as a vector of development and civilisation was more salient among less educated participants and in particular those with a high school education, among employees of state-owned companies and those with no international exposure.

*** In this chapter, I have pointed out the colossal hopes that participants to this research place in digital technology: they expected it to (a) improve people’s ‘moral quality’ by forcing them to follow the rules, (b) offset past humiliations by modernising the country, and (c) cure China by uprooting secrecy and hidden behaviours. In sum, they viewed technology as a magic bullet to all of China’s problems and an antidote to the narratives of moral shortcomings highlighted in Chapters 3, 4, and 5. The ‘government as protector’ and ‘technology as magic bullet’ are redeeming narratives that act as salvation from the fears and foils pertaining to low ‘moral quality’, lack of civilisation, and a pejorative view of privacy. I argue that this cohesive system of anguishing versus redeeming narratives creates a setting where digital surveillance may be seen as a useful approach, at least as an abstract principle. This analysis shows the value of situating surveillance imaginaries in their layers of historical, socio-economic, and political context, as attitudes towards surveillance and the complex narratives in which they are rooted are best understood as a system. Viewing digital surveillance as a potentially useful solution does not mean, however, that participants wholeheartedly supported it or that it did not weigh on them. The next part of this book turns to the mental tactics that participants developed to cope with the weight of digital surveillance as it applied to them personally, to their concerns and objections, and to the selfcensorship that they manifested. Notes 1 Yan Wu and Matthew Wall, “Prosumers in a Digital Multiverse: An Investigation of How WeChat Is Affecting Chinese Citizen Journalism,” Global Media and China 4, no. 1 (2019). 2 Yao Li, Xinning Gui, Yunnan Chen, Heng Xu, and Alfred Kobsa, “When SNS Privacy Settings Become Granular: Investigating Users’ Choices, Rationales, and Influences on Their Social Experience” (paper presented at the ACM on HumanComputer Interaction, New York, 2018).

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3 Wu and Wall, “Prosumers in a Digital Multiverse.” 4 See for instance Xia Jia, “What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese?” in Invisible Planets: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, ed. Ken Liu (New York: Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2018). 5 Yiqin Fu, “Attitudes Towards Science, Technology, and Surveillance in 49 Countries,” 2021, https://yiqinfu.github.io/posts/global-science-attitudes-2021/. 6 Genia Kostka, Léa Steinacker, and Miriam Meckel, “Between Security and Convenience: Facial Recognition Technology in the Eyes of Citizens in China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States,” Public Understanding of Science 30, no. 6 (2021). 7 Jeff Ding, “ChinAI #144: Artificial Challenged Intelligence [人工智障],” June 7, 2021, https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-144-artificial-challenged. 8 Hannah Rose Kirk, Kangkyu Lee, and Carlisle Micalle, “The Nuances of Confucianism in Technology Policy: An Inquiry into the Interaction Between Cultural and Political Systems in Chinese Digital Ethics,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 35 (2022). 9 One such pilot took place in Middle school number 11 in Hangzhou, in 2018; the project was called ‘eyes in the sky’ and cameras were installed in every classroom: Kai Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State (New York: Custom House, 2020). 10 Claire Seungeun Lee, “Datafication, Dataveillance, and the Social Credit System as China’s New Normal,” Online Information Review 43, no. 6 (2019). 11 Anne Cheng, Penser en Chine (Paris: Gallimard Folio, 2021). 12 Wang, Xinyuan, “China’s Social Credit System: The Chinese Citizens’ Perspective,” in Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing Blog (London: University College London, 2019). 13 Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Demain la Chine: Démocratie ou Dictature? (Paris: Le Débat, Gallimard, 2018). 14 Ibid. 15 David A. Palmer, “Three Moral Codes and Microcivil Spheres in China,” in The Civil Sphere in East Asia, ed. Jeffrey C. Alexander, David A. Palmer, Sunwoong Park, and Agnes Shuk-mei Ku (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 16 Jean-François Billeter, Chine trois fois muette: Essai sur l’histoire contemporaine et la Chine (Paris: Editions Allia, 2016). 17 Jean-Louis Rocca, “Crédit social. Spécificité chinoise ou processus de modernisation?” Sociétés politiques comparées 51 (2020). 18 Genia Kostka and Lukas Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship: Behavioral Responses to China’s Emerging Social Credit Systems,” Policy & Internet 12, no. 3 (2019). 19 Haili Li and Genia Kostka, “Accepting But Not Engaging with It: Digital Participation in Local Government-Run Social Credit Systems in China,” Policy & Internet 14 (2022). 20 Xu Xu, Genia Kostka, and Xun Cao, “Information Control and Public Support for Social Credit Systems in China,” The Journal of Politics 84, no. 4 (2022). 21 Wen-Hsuan Tsai, Hsin-Hsien Wang, and Ruihua Lin, “Hobbling Big Brother: Top-Level Design and Local Discretion in China’ s Social Credit System,” The China Journal, no. 86 (2021). 22 Chuncheng Liu, “Who Supports Expanding Surveillance? Exploring Public Opinion of Chinese Social Credit Systems,” International Sociology 37, no. 3 (2022).

PART IV

The mental and emotional weight of surveillance

8 MENTAL TACTICS TO DISSOCIATE ONESELF FROM SURVEILLANCE

I think we are miserable, but we’re used to it.

Viewing digital surveillance as a potentially useful principle does not mean that participants accept surveillance at it applies to them personally nor that they live well with it. The last part of this book analyses the mental tactics with which the participants coped with personal exposure to surveillance (this chapter), their concerns and objections to it (Chapter 9), and the costs that surveillance entailed for them in terms of self-censorship (Chapter 10). This chapter classifies the sophisticated range of mental tactics that participants used to dissociate themselves from personal exposure to surveillance (e.g. denying they could be personally monitored) or its consequences (e.g. denying the risks). Having to live with surveillance, it makes psychological sense to come up with defensive rationales that act as distancing mechanisms, whether they are conscious or not. These rationales were expressed by as many as 88 per cent of the participants, which means that almost every participant, independent from their views regarding surveillance, engaged in one or another of these mental tactics. I was able to classify four main defensive mental tactics, as illustrated in Figure 8.1: (1) brushing surveillance aside with the rationale ‘there is no risk associated with surveillance’, (2) othering surveillance targets with the rationale ‘I am a small potato/a good person’, (3) wearing blinders based on the rationale that ‘so far it has not harmed me’, and (4) resorting to fatalism with the rationale ‘it does not matter because I can only accept it’.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-13

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FIGURE 8.1 

Mental tactics of dissociation from surveillance

Brushing surveillance aside: minimising, ignoring, normalising, and reframing surveillance

The first defensive tactic was to dismiss surveillance as unimportant, to sweep it under the carpet by arguing that there is not much to worry about over digital surveillance. In this section, I depict four variations of this brushing aside of surveillance: (1) minimising or even denying, (2) ignoring, (3) normalising, and (4) reframing surveillance. Several surveys on censorship in China report that most internet users do not feel affected in any way by censorship: 77 per cent say that they have never been unable to access a website they wanted to check, 77 per cent say that they have never had social media posts deleted, and 91 per cent say that they have never had their social media accounts closed.1 In line with these findings, minimising and denying the risks were quite widespread among the participants, with reference to all of the surveillance devices and systems that I  asked about: cameras, social media, electronic payments, and the social credit system. Let’s examine how denial was expressed for each form of surveillance in turn. Minimising: cameras

One interesting argument was that the presence of cameras did not matter because nobody was watching them, as explained by a cheerful hotel manager: Nobody is watching. The government does not want to spend money to pay people to watch all the time. When they need it, they check; otherwise, no one is watching. (32)

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A variant of this rationale was that only the police or security guards watched, as proposed by a recruiter in a multinational: Only the police can see it. They have a right to see it. It’s OK. It does not influence my life. It records for some purpose and only some people can see it. It’s fine for me, they do it to catch criminals. (22) Another argument was that ‘they’ did not watch you all the time, as proposed by a community centre officer in Shanghai, who also made a distinction between recording and monitoring, implying that not all that was recorded was viewed: Someone is monitoring you, but not all the time, only if there is a problem. It’s a recording tool, not a monitoring tool. (20) A related idea was that ‘they’ don’t monitor you personally, as expressed by Gao Shu-hui, the English teacher: Gao Shu-hui: Cameras are not just watching you personally. They also watch other people. Researcher: Personally, I don’t like strangers watching me. Gao Shu-hui: Then it’s fine if only policemen can watch, or security guards. They only watch when necessary. (28) These reactions are interesting because they run counter to the argument that not knowing if and when you are being watched increases the anxiety caused by surveillance, as in the Panopticon prison imagined by Jeremy Bentham, where prisoners cannot see whether or not an inspector stands in the central lodge.2 However, the impersonal use of ‘they’ in the participants’ discourse does reflect the dissolution of the personalised connection between the watcher and the watched that characterises ‘liquid surveillance’ as exposed by the eminent surveillance studies scholar David Lyon.3 When I insisted that, for instance, cameras displayed jaywalkers’ faces for everyone to see in the street, this participant, an engineer with a PhD, went on to suggest the practice was only temporary: Han Dongmei: Maybe it’s temporary, two or three years to let people know that they should cross the street when the light is green, if it helps to discipline people. (49) When discussing emerging practices whose scope and salience have not yet been well established, I cautiously stated I had seen a video or heard about it. When I  opened the door for a rebuttal in that way, some participants

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doubled down and denied that such surveillance existed. Hear, for instance, this IT support employee in a large China IT company: Researcher:

I saw a video clip on a school using AI to recognize the students’ emotions and focus. Is this a good thing to do, do you think? Xu Chonglin: I doubt if they can achieve this, to see in what state you are, if you are focused or not. I have seen on Weibo that the scientists say it’s a fake programme. (43) Minimising: social media

Regarding social media, I  asked participants what type of content they posted, and then asked about the risks attached to posting, in particular posts that could be viewed as political. The risks were denied in two main ways: by minimising them and by feigning not to understand the nature of the risks. Some participants claimed that they were free to express whatever opinion they held. This human resources director in a state-owned company hesitated and looked embarrassed during this part of our exchange: Researcher:

I  have heard that people worry their social credit score could go down if they are critical on Weibo. Guo Chuntao: I have not heard that. People have the right to speak freely on Weibo and WeChat Moments. I  don’t think you’ll get punished for criticizing. (38) More often, the participants recognised that posting political content could be an issue, but they swept aside the issue by claiming that their posts were not political. For instance, a male university employee who was also beginning a PhD in social sciences claimed that writing poems and essays was safe: Researcher: Even if you use a pseudonym on Weibo, you must register with your real name, so they are some people who can connect your poems and thoughts to you. Do you worry about that? Liu Liang: No. I don’t worry [Laughs]. That is just the privacy. They have privacy policies, so I  don’t worry about that. Literature is a universal thing [meaning his poems are not political], so that’s not a problem. (7) The strength of the denial, coming from an educated intellectual who must know that literature has always been used to indirectly criticise monarchs and tyrants, was striking. Another way to minimise the risks of social media disclosures was to argue that the content would be deleted eventually. See,

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in the words of this PhD student and CPC member, how the pragmatic argument of storage capacities is brought into play: Some crucial information like our biological information, our face, our fingerprints, well that depends on the government, the legal situation in the country, right? If most people think it’s OK to share this information, the thing is how to manage [he hesitates] how to prevent its illegal disclosure, instead of not sharing it. Sometimes it’s not possible, so that’s why WeChat is very good in this because WeChat will delete your messages. After a time window, your texts will be deleted, and there is an economic benefit for their storage costs. All text messages are kept on Tencent servers, after a year or two this information will be deleted. So that’s OK. (12) More often, the participants chose to not directly discuss the issue of censorship and consequences attached to political posts. Instead, they discussed the companies’ privacy policies and framed the matter in terms of these policies’ reliability. See, for instance, how a young CPC member viewed the issue: Ma Bao:

I  share more private or personal things on Weibo than on WeChat, because I don’t have many friends following me. Researcher: Yet Weibo has a real name policy. Ma Bao: I trust this company, I’m not much concerned about that, but that’s a risk. (25) The same distancing mechanism was used for electronic purchases. Many participants framed the issue in terms of what the companies knew about them and whether company employees or hackers could steal this information, rather than how this information could be channelled into a central system by the government. For instance, this secretary in a state-owned company discussed companies and users as if they were equals, completely setting aside the power dynamics involved in the relationship and the matter of the government accessing her data: Xiao Huian: It’s acceptable. We leave traces online, but we have the password, so it’s safe. I  separate my money into different bank accounts, it’s safer than just one bank. Researcher: So Tencent and Alibaba, they have your information? Xiao Huian: [Hesitates, strokes her hair, falls silent]. It’s OK, it’s acceptable. We need to see the record, we like this function, so we can know: where is my money, what did I buy? [Long silence] Surely, we should allow companies to know the record, what they have sold to us, they should know. It will be equal [she gestures ‘equal’ by lifting her two hands at the same level]. (16)

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Even Xiaohan Feng, a woman who had thought hard and long about her daughter’s use of technology to the extent of enrolling her in a mobile phonefree high school, nevertheless claimed she was comfortable with people knowing what she bought online: Researcher:

Are there things you would rather not buy online, for instance, sensitive purchases? Xiaohan Feng: I have not seen anything sensitive. [Silence]. I’m not sure. Every purchase is open to all, I can show them to everyone. I don’t care. (9) Minimising: the social credit system

Minimising the dangers of the social credit system was even more widespread because of the opacity of the exact scope and use of that system (see ­Chapter 7). The rich range of narratives is interesting in itself. I classify them as follows: (1) the social credit system is imaginary or science fiction; (2) it can’t be done technically; and (3) it exists bit is only financial. The argument that the social credit system is fictitious was abruptly expressed by this Shanghai programmer: Researcher:

Some journalists report that when someone has a low social credit system, they can’t send their children to private schools. Cai Huang Fu: I think in China, at present, we don’t have that system. Researcher: You don’t have? Cai Huang Fu: At this point of time, we don’t have the social credit system. Yeah. [silence]. For people that have done some [bad] things, it does not influence their future. We don’t have this. (19) Likewise, a compliance manager who worked in a multinational and had travelled abroad likened the social credit system to dark fiction à la Black Mirror, referring to the famous ‘Nosedive’ episode of that series in which people rate one another online at every step of their daily life: Researcher: Some journalists report that when someone has a low social credit system, they can’t send their children to private school. Du Jianyu: It does not impact on the children, I don’t think. I heard about the social credit system, it’s still under development. Maybe it’s a fact but I don’t have that knowledge. It’s a future idea, I’m following Black Mirror, there is one story about credit, it’s a future image, not one that unfolds now. It has advantages

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and disadvantages. Black Mirror is a warning, it’s not just ­stories. (30) Another participant, a university professor who had studied and worked in several Western countries, viewed the social credit system as a fantasy. She did not specify whether she thought the fantasy has been fabricated in the West or was the Chinese government’s too: The social credit system is a fantasy. Yes, for crimes and debts, but books or dating do not interest them. They only use this when they need information on someone after something has happened. The social credit system is in use, but not with the scope of all the behaviours you describe. (4) Hu Lei, a human resources officer who had recently left Baidu, started off with this argument too and, as I pressed her, turned to variants, such as ‘it’s just a more effective background check’; only after that did she say that if it were actually implemented, people would resist it: Hu Lei:

[Talking fast, agitated] The question is: how will it be used, would it be a global score, or different scores for different types of behaviours, such as social media posts, purchases? I believe it must be financial only, the rest is imaginary. How could it be done in reality? It must be mostly financial, economics, to screen candidates for employment in government and the military. It’s very easy to develop this technically. But how to use it? Perhaps it’s similar to the zhengshen [background check], or the dang’an [the personal file following some citizens throughout their career, see Chapter 2] when they talk with your boss, your colleagues, your relatives. The social credit system could use data to tackle this question, so from the perspective of the common people, if it is for government and military employees it can help to hire reliable persons. Like a more effective zhengshen. Researcher: And for the other people, outside government? Hu Lei: I don’t know, it depends how it is used. Researcher: Then other types of behaviours could be included? Hu Lei: It’s fictional, this system. (47) When I took a 2-day break and went via high-speed train from Chengdu to Mount Emei, the famous Buddhist mountain, the announcement that welcomed new passengers explicitly referred to the social credit system. The announcement was urging train passengers to behave well and informing them that misbehaviour would reduce their social credit system score. The

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general part of the announcement was translated in English, but the part on the social credit system was not. On my way back from Mount Emei, I recorded this announcement. Equipped with this recording, I was curious to see if the ‘social credit system as science fiction’ argument would hold if I played the recording to participants. I risked it with Peng Shu, an import– export manager I was interviewing in my home in Canada, and she immediately exclaimed: ‘Maybe they’re bluffing’. Was she expressing actual doubts, because the current development stage of the social credit system is not clearly communicated? Other participants had suggested that some announcements on technological achievements in China were in fact bluff to bolster Chinese’s pioneering technology. Or was she trying to distance herself from the implications of social credit system surveillance by denying its reality? A second argument used to deny the social credit system was to argue that building and operating such a system were not technically feasible: I don’t think the government has the resources to collect this information. They can have the data, but most data are meaningless, you need to extract the useful data. (30) I don’t worry much. The authorities actually know that many people use a VPN. It is impossible to just control all the ways in which people use information. The behaviours, what you post online, like or dislike, it’s hard to record everyone, because everyone is creating data at every second. It’s hard to keep a score on everyone based on this type of behaviour. . . . It’s unnecessary to gather or record everyone’s data about their online behaviour. I don’t know whether WeChat or Weibo will record everyone’s data because it is enormous. I don’t know if they have the technical knowledge. (25) A more pragmatic argument consisted in asserting that the social credit system existed but was only financial (we saw in Chapter 2 that this is the most advertised component of the system but not in only one), as stated by this Beijing programmer: Researcher: So, the social credit system would be broader than zhengshen [the Chinese word for political screening], since zhengshen only screens out criminals? Pan Hung: It would be different; the rules would be different. The social credit system would probably be only used for financial matters. I do not really know. (48) Lǐ Nuan, a woman working at a university’s international office, appeared to be sincerely thinking about my questions and relatively comfortable

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discussing that topic. So, I  pushed her to consider the potential political implications of the social credit system; she was quite open as she answered: Researcher: Is it not a bit scary, if you happen to do something, and everything is recorded? Lǐ Nuan: Hum. [silence]. Maybe, yes, I  think, yes, maybe. [Nervous laughter, silence]. Researcher: The system could include things other than not paying your debts. For instance, somebody may decide that travelling in Xinjiang will reduce the score. Lǐ Nuan: No! [silence] Researcher: Well, how do you know? Lǐ Nuan: I don’t think it had an influence on me because I travelled there, my boyfriend has lived there, his whole family, for decades. He has a Xinjiang ID, he will be checked with some extra attention. However, it is fine, I went there, nothing happened to my credit, I don’t think. [she laughs]. Researcher: Or maybe if you go on holiday to Taiwan? Lǐ Nuan: I don’t think so, it’s just financial activities, as far as I am thinking, it’s just if you don’t pay back the debt, or legal cases, or you rent a bike and you don’t return it, such violations to the contract. Researcher: So, you don’t think this could also be political. Lǐ Nuan: I don’t . . . I don’t think, it never occurred to me, that it could be like that. I’m not aware that this credit system has connections with the political part, I just don’t know about this. (15) Ignoring

Beyond these minimising tactics, several participants chose to ignore the matter altogether, expressing an almost philosophical stance. Some of them dealt with the lack of control over their data by detaching themselves: If I don’t like the loss of privacy and freedom, I choose to ignore it, I don’t think of it. If such monitoring helps my work, I can accept it. If it’s meaningless, I’ll ignore it. (34) Others dealt with it by rationalising, arguing that what they can’t see doesn’t hurt them. In other words, they buried their heads in the sand and chose to ignore either personal exposure to surveillance or the consequences of it. For instance, Ye Lan, a human resources officer in a start-up, explained that

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indirect surveillance did not bother her much, as long as it remained hidden and did not interfere with her daily life: Researcher: How free are Chinese people? Ye Lan: [Embarrassed laughter, her tone changes, she slows down her pace of speech as if she is expressing herself more carefully now] At least I, and my family, and friends, are free, because we are free to go to places we want to, at our level [in our daily life]. Researcher: Some people say that the government is like a parent, so it’s fine that they tell people what to do – you seem to think differently? Ye Lan: It’s OK that the government monitors me indirectly, in a hidden way, when I don’t know. If I can’t perceive it, if it does not obviously disturb me. They know what I buy or where I go, but I have my way to live my life and no one disturbs me in my ways, so it’s acceptable. (35) Likewise, Wú Qing, a market surveys analyst who worked in a multinational and attended Communist Youth League meetings, explained how she chose to avoid thinking about her data footprint: Researcher: But Weibo has a real name policy. Wú Qing: Really? Oh, yes, they have your phone number, most apps in China do. I  know it’s true, but it does not bother me. Some friends have these concerns, about 10 per cent of them have quitted Weibo. Researcher: And people are watching you via CCTV. Wú Qing: It’s the same as social media. It’s true but it does not harm me. It does not remind me all the time. Sometimes I choose to ignore it. If it had an influence on my work, my performance review, I would be more reluctant [to being watched on CCTV]. (24) Of course, electronic payments and social media posts leave a data footprint in an abstract and invisible way. What about cameras, then, which are to be seen everywhere in China, from streets to public buildings to hotels, workplaces, and university corridors? I wanted to know: can you avoid seeing the cameras? Several participants explained how they did so. Their techniques went beyond becoming accustomed to them; they deliberately excluded the cameras from their conscious observation. An engineer who had come back to China after several years in Germany told me she had not seen the camera in the lobby of her own apartment building. She shared her ambivalence about being watched; note the euphemism in ‘It’s a little bit horrible’: Honestly, I didn’t see the camera in the lobby. [She laughs] I saw the video zone notice but I did not see the camera. I don’t mind the camera in the

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lobby, I just go past and I don’t search for it. . . . In Germany I also read that the social credit system can include behaviours caught by cameras such as jaywalking, because of facial recognition. They can find people quickly using your face measurements. It’s a little bit horrible. [She laughs more nervously]. Why I say horrible, I don’t know. I asked myself. I do not want someone to look at me in this system but on the other hand if they are looking for criminals, it’s good. So, I’m not sure. Public safety is more important than my face. If they look for a criminal and my face is also there, it’s OK that they analyse my face. It makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I can forget it. I can’t do anything, I have no choice, I can’t say ‘I don’t want to be cameralised’ [sic]. (49) Another participant, a transportation chief engineer, also said he did not mind cameras. However, he was disturbed by the new ‘pay with a smile’ machines that allow people to pay for in-store purchases by showing their face at the paying booth instead of scanning their Alipay or WeChat Pay QR code. The difference, he argued, was that he could not ignore the camera at the paying booth, as he had to look at it to pay, while he could very easily exclude the other cameras from his perceptions: Su Kueng:

Pay with a smile is terrible. It affects my privacy, when you don’t need a tool between you and another thing [when there is no intermediary such as a phone]. Researcher: Why is that? Su Kueng: The phone is just a phone, it’s not me, but my face is me. Researcher: But when you pay on your smartphone, there may also be a camera somewhere in the shop, so it’s the same, isn’t it? Su Kueng: The outcome of the payment is the same, but the process makes me uncomfortable, it’s the feeling. Even if there are many cameras, I don’t notice them, but here I put my face in front of a machine and it’s too personal. Cameras may monitor me but if I don’t notice that, it’s not my privacy. But if I do notice it, it’s damaging my privacy. In theory it’s the same, but the feeling is different. Researcher: Personally, I  see that there are cameras in many places, and I don’t like it much. Su Kueng: If I know there is a camera in the room, I don’t mind, but staring at a camera to pay, I have to notice it. (23) Normalising

A different approach to that of minimising or ignoring surveillance was to normalise the daily collection of personal data by various companies and administrations, that is, to present it as an ordinary thing. Such normalising has been

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noted by philosopher Michel Foucault and observed in many societies.4 People get used to what they view as ordinary and cease to question it. The normalisation narrative was two-pronged; the first line of reasoning argued that providing one’s data was normal because ‘everyone in China does it’: Peng Shu:

I shop online a lot, my friends and I agree to buy the same overseas products and they are cheaper. It saves me a lot of time. Researcher: So, you use your real home address? Peng Shu: Yes, it has to be the real one. I could use the office’s address, but we have become used to using our name, address, and ID card too, because customs need to verify that it’s you. The first time I  did it I  felt uncertain but then I  saw on the news that Taobao [Alibaba] was safe, so I felt reassured. In China everyone shares their credit card information, their address, their ID. We feel secure. . . . It’s like the metro: when they started to scan bags, people were irritated, especially at rush hour. They said it was useless, that if criminals want to do something [illegal; many participants used ‘criminal’ in a broad sense, meaning any behaviour that infringes a regulation or norm; hence, a subway fare-dodger could be called a criminal], they’ll find ways. But one year later, everyone is lining up to be scanned. We know the government respects people’s lives, it’s much secure. Because bad things happen in some cities . . . it makes us feel secure. (51) Researcher: These companies know a lot about you. Zhong Li: Yes, it really matters, but it’s unavoidable. Even if they don’t get the information this way, we live in an information age and they can get it another way. . . . For us it’s common, we’re helpless, we get used to it. (39) The second line of reasoning went that surveillance was normal because it also happened in other countries: Researcher: Do you think about the traces you leave when you search and buy things online? Pan Hung: I never thought of that . . . [She looks surprised] I think it’s . . . normal! Even in Germany, on eBay, and if I search on Amazon, I receive ads. (49) Don’t be naïve. People in the United States are being watched as well, only they don’t know. (4) Researcher: It’s easy to see the pattern, if someone criticizes the government on WeChat, watches YouTube, travels abroad . . . Du Jianyu: [She turns her gaze sideways and pauses.] Maybe. It’s not only the Chinese government. Most governments use social media as a tool to spy. (30)

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Gao Shu-hui, the English teacher, had become used to being constantly filmed in the classroom. When I noticed the camera in the classroom and asked her about it, she admitted that she did not like being filmed. Yet she rationalised the need for this filming by stating it was common practice and explained its purpose, and then shared advice on how to cope with that unpleasant feeling. She viewed adaptation to that reality as the only possible option: Gao Shu-hui: CCTV in the classroom is OK. Most of the time they won’t check it. If children fight, the parents want to know who started it. Or they want to see if the teachers wear the uniform. Or check the teachers’ ability. Researcher: You don’t mind being filmed? Gao Shu-hui: That’s the company policy, I can’t change that. Researcher: I would feel pressured if I was constantly filmed when I teach. Gao Shu-hui: It’s OK. Just be yourself, don’t be too nervous. (28) I was wondering whether foreigners got used to surveillance exposure as well. When I asked a French participant if he had ever had issues with surveillance, he boasted that he spoke freely with students on forbidden topics, which he named the ‘3 Ts’: Tiananmen, Tibet, and Taiwan. However, he also shared that two Chinese citizens he knew personally had been blacklisted, one of them because he had organised a rock concert whose lyrics were not deemed appropriate. That person found out only when he tried to book a plane ticket and could not. He also narrated how the police knocked on his door one early morning, brandishing guns and tearing apart his apartment in search of proof that he was an Islamist terrorist  – just because, according to him, he had taken to wearing a long beard. When I asked how he felt about censorship, surveillance, and the police, he explained simply: At first you are scared, then you see how it goes, and you get used to it. (11) The German expatriate in the following excerpt depicted very clearly how societal norms carry over seemingly small acts of daily life, such as renting a bike to cross a city or calling a taxi via a smartphone application: Researcher: Do you pay in cash or take regular cabs instead of using Didi [a taxi app]? Harold: No, it would be a lot of effort, I’m not sure if it makes any difference. If there was concrete danger, yes, but as far as I know, the company would warn us. It’s not worth the effort to try and get out of sight of technology [avoid leaving digital traces]. It’s useful for daily life. It’s a balancing act between risks and

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gains, and apparently, I don’t think the risks are great. But to rent a bike they ask for your passport, your visa number, and a real picture, and I don’t do that because I don’t trust data protection by small companies. At the airport, they ask for your fingerprints, and that’s OK, even if it is slightly disturbing. In Germany I would not have registered with my passport. Here it’s normal, you just do it. Normality depends on the environment in which you use the technology. The environment makes you think it’s OK to do that. (50) He went on to comment on the costs of being too wary of the political implications of surveillance, which, as a German citizen accustomed to critical examinations of German history, he knew full well: Maybe the West is paranoid. Maybe there’s not so much [danger] in cameras, and the West is missing out because we immediately end the discussion [about cameras] with ‘Gestapos, Stasi, we have had that’. But it’s coming to Europe, just as Facebook did come to Germany. You can’t stop technology, you should play along with it and be a big player. There are benefits too, you need to distinguish between the technology and its use. (50) Reframing

When facing an issue that we cannot change or escape, a classic coping mechanism is to change the way we cognitively frame the issue. For instance, Rén Xian, who worked in office design, explained how she framed being forced to use WeChat for work in a positive light: Rén Xian:

I  dislike work groups on WeChat. When I  started using WeChat, I thought it was for family and friends and QQ [an instant messaging application] was for work. Researcher: You have no choice, I suppose? Rén Xian: I passively accept it. At first, I resisted it, but it did not work. . . . This is a mega trend, we cannot resist it. So, we should think about it in a good way, not in a negative way. (13) So did an executive assistant who made herself stress the good intentions behind the technology: I know Alipay and WeChat Pay can get these data on my usage but I’m not sure how my consuming patterns or paying actions will influence my life.

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They use it to improve their service or products. Taobao [Alibaba] knows my shopping patterns. I’d prefer to think they want to do something good. I know the risk. I don’t know how to avoid it, so I just accept it. (25) Cognitive coping is also wonderfully captured by this construction worker: That’s how it is, of course, if I buy with it, I leave my information. If I buy a car or an apartment, I also leave my information. If you cannot change a fact, you have to adapt to it. (14) When I  asked whether they felt one had to trade off privacy and freedom for convenience and security, I also noticed a lot of reframing going on. One approach was to reframe restrictions to freedom as temporary: Researcher: Yang Jie: Researcher: Yang Jie:

Does this mean you need to accept restrictions to your freedom? I don’t think I’m restricted. What about books? Yes, I can understand it, for a limited time. (12)

Another was to redefine the scope of freedom to narrow choices, such as what one had for lunch: Guo Chuntao: The stereotype about Chinese people is not right. We value freedom. . . . The country makes the laws, the regulations, it’s the bottom line of all peoples. The other behaviours are my freedom, for instance what I will have for lunch. (38) Other interesting reframing involved comparisons with the West: Researcher: In the West, many people don’t like cameras. Jia Qiang: It’s a different ideology, and lifestyle. So-called freedom must be based on safety, otherwise it is not freedom. Drugs are common in the West, it’s not good, it’s not freedom. (40) Or comparisons with recent history: My parents are not concerned because they think it’s freer now. You can travel, express opinions, get in touch with the outside world. (24) Twenty years ago, the government would have sent the army [to Hong Kong]. It’s freer now, the government left them alone. (32)

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And comparisons with other people: I am free, I can go abroad, do what I want. People who work for the government, like some of my friends, are not free. (18) Clearly, the reframing narratives of the participants around surveillance and freedom were embedded within CPC narratives. According to political scientists Kerry Brown and Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, freedom (ziyou) is one of the 12 keywords that anchor the CPC’s discourse under Xi Jinping. They explain that the CPC has ‘decontamined and pacified’ that word after it had been used by 1989 Tiananmen demonstrators to reflect notions of free elections and Western liberalism.5 In its current CPC meaning, ziyou refers to improved standards of life, such as the freedom to own a home and to travel. It also takes on a collective meaning as the freedom to ‘have a new status in the outside world’ and make up for the past lack of respect of other countries for China. Sinologist Jean-François Billeter notes that up until the 20th century, there was no word for freedom in Mandarin, and that the idea of freedom as the ancient Greeks conceived of it was only expressed negatively as a withdrawal from society’s rules, such as in the solitary figure of the hermit or of the Buddhist monk.6 Othering surveillance targets

The second of the four main mechanisms by which the participants dissociated themselves from surveillance was the othering of surveillance targets, that is, the assertion that they, themselves, were not affected because surveillance targeted ‘others’, who were ‘big potatoes’ or ‘criminals’. Viewing surveillance as useful when directed at others is not uniquely Chinese; it constitutes one of the paradoxes identified by noted surveillance studies scholar Graham Sewell in his observations in a Japanese electronics plant and other settings: ‘I’m comfortable with surveillance, just don’t direct it at me’.7 In other words, surveillance can at the same time be framed as caring when it protects the majority from a minority’s misbehaviours and as coercive when it constrains us.8 However, what was interesting in the participants’ discourse was the variations around this paradox. ‘I am a small potato’

Many participants claimed to not be concerned by the tracking of their behaviour, opinions, or lifestyles by big companies or the government because they were not ‘important’ persons: in their own words, they were ‘small potatoes’. They believed that the companies, the government, and the hackers that may access the data would not pay attention to them.

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For instance, a taxi driver in Beijing viewed surveillance as targeted to ‘big potatoes’: Researcher: Do you think about the traces you leave when you search and buy things online? Shi Ping: It’s nonsense. If you worry you can choose not to use it. I’m not a big potato, there’s no need for people to intentionally find me. (44) The most frequent adjectives used to convey this small potato argument were ‘ordinary’, ‘common’ and ‘not important’, be it in the mouth of a secretary, a taxi driver, a construction worker, a student, a faculty, or the head of an international office in a university: Yes, I’m being watched. But I’m not important enough for them to bother about me. (4) And sometimes because we are not famous enough, they don’t care about us, so they won’t track your activities. (5) Researcher:

If you worry, you could shut down your phone when you talk with a friend, to protect your thoughts. Jin Shan: It’s OK to accept the mobile, even if we don’t like to be monitored. I am not that important. (14) Researcher: You don’t want your boss to see this photo of you in a bar dancing, but Tencent sees it. Xiao Huian: I never thought of that. I just want to share with my friends. Researcher: Now that you’re thinking about it, would you change what you post? Xiao Huian: No, it’s OK. If something is really, really private I won’t post it. The dancing photo is not important to them [Tencent]: they don’t care. (16) However, the participants felt that other people should be protecting their privacy, and in particular (1) rich and powerful people, (2) people who were politically active, and (3) employees in occupations subject to restrictions such as bank and IT employees. The first category of people comprised senior officers in public positions who could be suspected of corruption, individuals from known families who needed to protect their reputation, and wealthy individuals: For us, we are not so important. No one would be interested in our data. Maybe someone important to our country, they may want to

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know. If someone steals information from important people, they can get benefits. (29) I don’t mind that because I am a common people, so even if they know, I’m not a leader, I don’t use public money. (36) Researcher: When you use WeChat to share the bill at a restaurant, WeChat knows with whom you shared the meal. Zhong Li: Exactly. I have thought of that. But it’s more convenient [than cash], I don’t care if others know with whom I am. We are common people, my colleagues and I. We are atoms in society, little components. But if I was with a powerful friend or one is from a famous family, I would be concerned for them because they may be targeted. We have a trust crisis, an integrity crisis. (39) Xiaohan Feng, a human resources director who had thought a lot about technology, supported the small potato idea with the argument that data on a given individual were of no value in the era of Big Data: Xiaohan Feng: I  understand your question but for myself, I  think, just me  .  .  . they need to collect the data for all people and aggregate them to do the analyses, it’s not just me. Researcher: What do you mean when you say ‘aggregate the data’? Because I’m not a high officer, not a public person, I’m just Feng: a social human. So just my personal data are not attractive to them to do something. (9) This attitude has been noted in Western countries as well; for instance, in their work on personal assistants, surveillance studies scholar Jason Pridmore and colleagues note that the belief that we lead an unremarkable and uninteresting life, devoid of problematic choices, is widespread.9 This is the classic ‘I have got nothing to hide’ argument that Western and Chinese scholars such as Daniel Solove10 and Hu Yong11 have rebutted. However, there is an interesting difference to be noted: in the Western literature on surveillance, research participants discuss being monitored by commercial companies (e.g. Google, Facebook) and the government (e.g. the American National Security Agency). However, the Chinese participants I interviewed were primarily concerned about commercial surveillance and the risk of data theft. They perceived that the main risk was not government surveillance, but rather having their privacy intruded on by people who would steal their identity, expose their personal information, and possibly blackmail them. Naturally, the narrative of trust in the government as a protective parental figure underlies these views (see Chapter 6). See, for instance, how this

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programmer in a start-up viewed the government as a protector of civil servants’ privacy: Cai Huang Fu: Maybe if a politician is very important, I  think they will never use Taobao [Alibaba]. Researcher: So how do you protect your privacy if you are a politician? Cai Huang Fu: You can also go to shopping malls, offline. I  think that politicians or people from the higher social layers . . . their Tencent or Alibaba records will be protected, there will be cooperation between the government and the companies to protect the records. In this layer [of society] privacy is very important for them. (19) The second category of people who were seen as important people were those who had ‘political interests’, particularly in Beijing, where politics is heightened: Beijing people are more cautious than in the countryside or Shanghai. In the countryside, people gossip about big potatoes. The government can’t monitor everyone, there’s not enough time. And most people don’t need to be monitored. For instance, I read that book, 1984, but I do not share it [with other people]. I don’t call for revolution. (52) With this woman who had lived in Germany, I was able to probe the difference between surveillance in Germany and China, which surfaced political engagement as a risk factor: Han Dongmei: They know where I live, where I go, it’s true, but it’s OK, I’m a small person, a normal person, a normal resident in Beijing. Researcher: What do you mean, ‘normal’? Han Dongmei: The big boss of Tencent, or of JinDong [JD, one of the largest retailer and internet company in China], I’m not sure if they use Didi. Their privacy will be . . . many people want to contact them. Most people are like me, very normal, this technology helps us and brings convenience. Researcher: Well, also for normal people, if you post improper content on WeChat or Weibo . . . Han Dongmei: What do you mean? I know it can be deleted but then what happens? You can still create a new account! Researcher: I’m not sure you can, because you give your true name when you create your accounts. Han Dongmei: Oh, now I see the difference. On Amazon I don’t have to give my passport information, on Jindong I have to give my ID, for WeChat Pay as well. I had not thought of that, now I see the point. [She blows heavily]. Hum . . . [Silence]

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Researcher:

So perhaps this also includes what you buy, the videos you watch, whether you use a VPN. Han Dongmei: Oh . . . . ah . . . . that’s a little bit serious. Researcher: I’m just guessing, I’m not sure what is included in the social credit system. Han Dongmei: I don’t think that the government has an interest in monitoring normal people. I have confidence in that. We live, we work, we buy something; the government has no interest in normal people like us. Now I see why I’m a normal person: I have no interest in politics. Now I know, for people with political interests, it would be different. (49) The last category of people for whom the participants admitted that digital footprints could be an issue were employees in occupations such as banks or IT, because the occupations often entailed travel restrictions or non-competition clauses: Gao Shu-hui: Some people worry when they have criminal behaviours, but I’m not so rich. I’m not the aim. Researcher: I read that the social credit system may compute your score based on what you buy, what you watch; for instance, if you buy much alcohol, or if you play video games a lot, your score could go down. Gao Shu-hui: [Frowns] It must be only for members of the CPC! What I  buy? If I’m jaywalking, they make a record, yes. Public employees have many . . . They can’t go abroad, they have to apply for that. Bank employees can’t go overseas freely, and they can’t stay more than seven days. Some of my friends want to change jobs for this reason. It is stricter for them, there are some limitations, but not for normal people. (28) I recently transferred from Baidu to another tech company, I  can’t say their name. Baidu has a non-competition clause; they forbid employees to leave to join another tech company for one year. They want to make sure I obey the rules. Baidu can invade my everyday life and scan my messages, they’ll probably use software to gather my information and monitor me in secret. For ordinary people, the convenience exceeds the privacy concerns but for IT employees, it’s a nightmare. (47) ‘I am a good person; the blacklist is just for criminals’

The second argument participants employed to deny personal exposure to surveillance was that they were good people. They viewed surveillance as directed at criminals; therefore, they had nothing to worry about. People

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accept surveillance more easily when they believe it targets others than themselves and the in-group with which they identify. For instance, people are more likely to accept video surveillance as well as the monitoring of telephone and internet activity when they think it is meant to identify terrorists and other criminals.12 In the Chinese context, the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy is embedded in the narrative of rules versus violations and deviance (see Chapter 3). A good person, in this narrative, is one who follows the rules. Therefore, many participants explained that they were not worried by the social credit system and its potential consequences because they obeyed the rules: The social credit system is a good idea because I am a good person who obeys the rules, I don’t have deviant behaviours. (24) The government will only catch you if you do not obey the rules, or do illegal things, so you don’t have to worry. (18) As long as they [cameras] are there for the purpose of public security, it is OK, because most of us won’t do anything illegal or violate the regulations. (13) For us, we don’t think it will have much influence on us and on the contrary, we think that improving public behaviour will make the environment and surroundings better for us, for the ones who obey the rules in the first place, even without this credit system. (15) Researcher: Is there a negative side to the social credit system? Hsieh Xiaobo: There is no privacy but that is fine, if you do nothing bad, everything will be all right, so why worry? (32) The good person narrative was also embedded in the view of privacy as being suspicious (see Chapter 5): the mere fact that a person is concerned about surveillance was viewed by several participants as a sign that this person is not ‘behaving themselves’, or is not a ‘normal’ person, as opposed to a criminal: The cameras remind you that you can’t do bad things; if you have high moral quality you don’t have to worry. Everyone needs moral quality, for instance when you drive. There are also regulations about throwing the garbage and speaking loudly. For normal people it does not matter if there are cameras or not. (20) If you don’t do bad things, it’s OK that you are monitored. If you just do normal things, that are not so serious, they won’t put you on the blacklist. (29)

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In addition, framing surveillance in terms of rule enforcement served to strengthen support for cameras and the social credit system, because of the widespread narrative that rule breaking should be punished (see Chapter 3): Researcher: What do you think of preventive policing in the United Kingdom, where the police use crime data and people’s demographics to try and stop crime before it occurs? Ma Bao: For me I am not a guy who should be prevented [Stutters]. As an individual I am more focused on my daily work, I won’t do much research on that [the social credit system]. Until now, I haven’t felt much affected by this social credit system. I’m not affected by this system because if I don’t do something illegal, or disrupt order on the high-speed train, I won’t be punished or investigated. From my personal standpoint, this type of behaviour should be prohibited and punished, so I think the advantages of this social system are greater than the disadvantages. (25) These excerpts illustrate the dichotomy between good people, who have nothing to fear, and bad people. The good person narrative bore undertones of infantilisation, as discussed in Chapter 3: it had a stylised, simplified quality to it, as in children’s fiction and movies about villains. I became aware of this when Peng Shu, a cultured and well-travelled 53-year-old professional, referred to herself as ‘a good girl’, as if she was a young child learning to distinguish right from wrong. Many participants classified people in black and white categories and did not seem to consider the possibility that a ‘good’ person could unintentionally violate a rule: Du Jianyu: For most people, the common people who don’t do bad things, more cameras make the safe environment safe. Researcher: But still when there are cameras, I feel watched. Du Jianyu: [Laughs] I don’t do bad things. It’s to ensure safety and to protect the good ones. (30) Everybody knows what is good or bad, legal or illegal. As human beings we know. We avoid bad behaviours, therefore we don’t think our score will be reduced. (16) The blacklist and social credit system were depicted as addressing only serious offenses, and therefore were not a source of concern for ordinary citizens: Researcher: Have you heard of the social credit system?

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Li Tao:

There are only two things: the economic record in the Central Bank of China and the criminal record at the police station. There is no record of daily life, this doesn’t matter. It you behave impolitely, people will tell you, but it will not be recorded. We don’t have laws to regulate that. It’s only the very serious behaviours. Recently I have seen that it’s also in the high-speed train, if a behaviour affects public security, but it’s just at the start. (20)

Perhaps the familiarity with the background checks (zhengshen) that are routinely performed in China, for instance, when you apply to university, explains the normalisation of the search for criminals. A Baidu programmer explained that there was no need to worry about such background checks because they were only an issue for criminals: I have gone through a background check myself, when I applied for military college. Most people can pass zhengshen, except criminals. (48) Hu Lei, the Baidu ex-employee, was very aware that anything going through the internet could be monitored by the government or competitors, because she had received briefings at her company regarding data security; yet she felt safe because she was not involved in matters of national security: Researcher: So what do you do to protect your data for your personal use? Hu Lei: [laughs]. I try to balance efficiency with privacy. If some information needs to be protected really well, I will use a USB drive. I won’t use the internet. Researcher: Even calls can be monitored. Hu Lei: Yes, calls can be monitored by the government, and also by China Telecom. I  do nothing related to national security, so that’s not a concern for me. (47) The word ‘criminals’ came up often in this narrative: criminals were the target of surveillance. From there it followed that only criminals would know their social credit score, and that those with a low credit score were criminals: I think right now only those people who have really low scores, who didn’t pay off their tax, know that they are on the blacklist, they know that, so they can’t buy, huh . . . high-speed train tickets, plane tickets, so they know. But people who have not done bad things don’t know their exact scores. (5) It’s a trade-off between privacy and security. For instance, Schenzhen was not safe at all, you could not go there with small children in particular,

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because there were kidnappings. Now it is safe. They catch criminals, they prevent them from travelling. People with bad credit scores are criminals. (4) Several participants felt safe because they explained nobody was watching the cameras in real time and data were accessed only when someone was suspected of a criminal activity – a form of post-hoc surveillance: I think the government prefers to gather this information when they want to sue someone, when they suspect that a guy did someone illegal, then they will ask Weibo or WeChat to provide the data related to this guy. It’s unnecessary to gather or record everyone’s data about their online ­behaviour. (25) In the divide between good and bad people, several participants thought that merely expressing a political opinion on social media would not undermine someone’s social credit score; only criminal activity would do that: Let me imagine, if I  post terrible things on Weibo, like there is a bomb on an airplane, it is possible for them to report me. One colleague was arrested at the airport because his wife spread the rumour that he was intending to do terrible things. Posting on Weibo should not be evidence for decreasing someone’s score unless I  have done something truly  .  .  ., unless it is evidence for a crime. Posting in Weibo can be just some complaints, it’s not right to increase or decrease the score. (38) It depends on the extent to which they have harmed society, if they kill . . . then taking a picture of them or even a film is OK, but if it is only bad words and there’s no damage, it’s not necessary to list them on the blacklist. (40) Holding to this normal versus criminal dichotomy, many participants felt that the social credit system should not be extended to non-criminal offenses; for instance, even Wang Lan, the dormitory aunt whose job it was to enforce university regulations, did not want the students’ scores to be decreased when they broke rules, because that system should be used only for serious offenses, such as the Hong Kong demonstrations and riots: Researcher: Would you like that system in dormitory? Wang Lan: It’s not necessary to have this technique, students at the university are not mature, they can be educated. There’s no need to use cameras to hurt their faces [sic]. Sometimes they don’t swipe their cards, or the boys go to the girls’ dormitory, it’s tiny violations, it’s nothing like Hong Kong, it’s OK. (45)

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Only one person, a start-up programmer in Shanghai, discussed the matter of monitored behaviours in a less dichotomic way. He acknowledged that using a VPN, which is forbidden, would worry him a bit. He still referred to himself as a ‘normal’ person, using the ‘good person’ rationale as a distancing mechanism, yet he saw that there could be different interpretations of behaviour such as the use of a VPN to access foreign news: Cai Huang Fu: In China, if you do not do serious things, criminal things, it will not affect your future. Maybe you steal some small thing in a shopping mall and go to prison, but these things will not have a bad effect on your future. Researcher: Do you worry when you use a VPN? Cai Huang Fu: Maybe a little. I am a normal person, but I want to know in-depth about the things going around. I  am sure many people use the VPN, the government knows that, I will not be punished, it’s very usual. If I  don’t harm the country’s safety, it’s OK. I just read. (19) Wearing blinders: ‘so far, it has not harmed me’

The third distancing mechanism used by the participants was to maintain their attention on their present daily life, putting on blinders to not see the potential impacts of surveillance at a larger scale or even for them in the future. Their discourse was that ‘so far’, surveillance did not seem to have direct consequences on their daily life. ‘So far’ was an expression that I spotted right from the start, in the first interviews, when I saw in my notebook that I had circled it numerous times. It struck me that, in French at least, the expression ‘so far so good’ (jusqu’ici tout va bien) has undertones of caution, implying that things could change and become problematic. In my view, the repeated use of this locution serves as a psychological defence: if I can’t subtract myself from surveillance because the government and technology are inescapable forces, if I can’t be sure that I am one of the ‘good ones’ that will not be targeted, then I can distance myself temporally, by reassuring myself that ‘so far’, things are fine. The ‘so far, it has not harmed me’ rationale took several forms. Focusing on daily life

According to sinologist Jean-Pierre Cabestan,13 most of the population in China considers that political matters do not directly impact on their daily life. Therefore, Cabestan casts a majority of the population as detached from politics. However, this is up for debate, as part of the population does hunger for information from different sources and political discussions. This was shown, for instance, by the great success of Clubhouse applications in February 2021, where thousands of continental Chinese, as well as Hong Kong

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and Taiwan citizens, have exchanged points of view on the most taboo topics in China, including Tiananmen, the Uyghur camps in Xinjiang, and the relationships between continental China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.14 Cabestan seems to win the argument in the minds of the participants. Many of them were of the mind that ‘most’ people, and ‘normal’ people, did not perceive data footprints as problematic because they focused on the fulfilment of their basic needs, on other pursuits such as money and power, or simply kept themselves busily entertained through TikTok, gaming sites, and other platforms. This disconnection between ideology and daily life may well reflect what David Palmer and Fabian Winiger from the University of Hong Kong call the ‘neo-socialist governmentality’, in which citizens have some agency in the ways in which they conform to the Party’s demands, and may ignore ‘Party-speak’ in their private behaviour, as long as it does not undermine the Party’s goals.15 The focus on daily life is expressed in the following excerpts by participants as diverse as a taxi driver, a chief transportation engineer, a programmer, and an English teacher: Chinese people do not worry about privacy, it’s not like in the West. The problems you mention, I don’t worry. What I read, what I buy . . . these people are not in my daily life, they can’t contact me. Why should I worry? (28) The record [the trace an online purchase leaves] does not harm me in my daily life. (23) I use Gaode [the equivalent of Google maps] for maps, so yes, they know my location, and where I live. It’s not a problem, it does not harm me. (44) Most people don’t care about these things. They care about money and power. Personal privacy does not affect many people’s lives. (19) Gao Shu-hui: Yes Taobao [Alibaba] knows everything, but in China most people don’t care about it. Researcher: Why? Gao Shu-hui: It does not have any direct influence on normal people’s life, what they buy. No matter what Taobao or Tianmao [another retail platform] knows, they will not have an influence on people’s lives. In China at these times, I  think that people don’t have the sense to care about personal privacy, they do not pay much attention to privacy.  .  .  . Normal people don’t get involved in social affairs, politics, or the economy. They just go to work, earn money, get some food, and live. They don’t know about other countries, what’s happening in the world, or they may see the news but the news does not

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influence their life. For instance, between China and the USA we have a bad war, but for normal people it has no influence on their life. (19) In the mind of participants in their thirties and older, the young generation was the most immersed in daily life and the least attuned to privacy issues and politics: Researcher: Is the young generation more concerned about the cameras than the older generation? Zhong Li: Do they mind the cameras? They have no special reaction, they just let it go, they think it’s normal, they focus on their things. I  don’t think they are more concerned than my generation. They’re endlessly happy. The young generation has weaker self-control, no awareness about the consequences, no clear understanding of the consequences. They enjoy reality, instant pleasure, they ignore considerations of privacy and safety. They’re more focused on enjoying themselves. (39) Assessing the consequences for self and family

The main question the participants asked about the data gathered on them pertained to consequences. Whereas many Western citizens and scholars approach the social credit system on the basis of abstract principles and values such as individual rights or democracy, the participants’ response was quite pragmatic. They first asked me how the score would be used: How reliable is the evaluation system, how will it be used? (1) Wang Lan: Is this financial? Researcher: It is financial, but the plan also mentions social and personal behaviours. Wang Lan: What is it going to be used for? Researcher: To measure people’s reputation. Wang Lan: Where will it be displayed? The community, the workplace, the university? [Looks worried] What are the consequences going to be? (45) Then, their assessment of the system rested primarily on its consequences for themselves: I know that Alipay, WeChat Pay can get this data by my usage but I’m not sure how my consuming patterns or paying actions will influence my life. (25)

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The next quote is typical of a participant declining to assess whether the social credit system is intrinsically right or wrong (‘We can’t say if it’s good or bad’), then thinking about potential consequences for herself: I heard in Germany that for every resident in China, the data will be in the social credit system, that it will be managed by the office of the residents’ living community. [The CPC has an office for each building or group of houses; she pointed that office door and the adjacent notice board in the hall of her apartment building when she showed me out]. If an old mother’s son has not visited her for six months, she can go there and talk to the living community and have his score decreased. We can’t say if it’s good or bad. I  read this and thought, if my mother did that, my score would be bad. (49) The participants’ first instinct seemed to ponder on how they could gain, or at least not lose, from the system. Indeed, 95 per cent of respondents to a 2019 survey in China had changed their behaviours to improve their social credit score. Nearly 61 per cent used mobile payment apps more often, more than half had adjusted their shopping behaviour and obeyed traffic regulations, about a third had donated money and a fifth had spent less time playing online games. About 18 per cent had changed the content they shared online, and the same proportion had unfriended a person on social media because of their low score. Respondents with higher income and education levels were more likely to make these changes, and more women than men reported having changed their behaviour to improve their score.16 A few participants hinted that they would change their behaviour to improve their social credit score if they knew how to: Guo Chuntao:

Researcher: Guo Chuntao:

To improve my score, I  will avoid the behaviours that decrease my score, such as using a VPN. People using a VPN every day should be concerned. It depends whether you are affected [whether you personally engage in behaviours that can lower your score]. Do you mind that the score may guide your behaviours? [Thinks.] It depends how the system is used: I must know what it’s used for. If I borrow money to buy a house, will it prevent me from borrowing? (38)

‘So far so good’

The temporal aspect of participants’ dismissal of concerns regarding surveillance was particularly widespread and interesting. The idea that surveillance was acceptable because until now, it had not had detrimental consequences to them was brought up by young and old participants, participants who had

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never travelled abroad and those who had, and participants in a range of occupations, for example, a market surveys analyst, a student, and a mechanical engineer: It’s human nature. When it’s coming, we’ll think about it, not when it’s far away from us. (58) Researcher: When you pay with your phone, do you sometimes think of the traces you leave? Wú Qing: I seldom think of it. We can’t live without Zhifu [AliPay], or Didi. We have facial recognition, CCTV is everywhere. It won’t harm me at present, so far, it does not do actual harm, so I’m not that concerned. (24) So far, it works. There’s no apparent reason to change. (50) So far, it’s very convenient. So far, it does not create any problem for me. (22) Similar locutions used to express this temporal dismissal of concerns were ‘for now’, ‘until now’, and ‘at present’: For now, it’s OK for me, I know the concerns for privacy but for now it’s OK . . . (12) I have not thought about this problem. I have to use the VPN. The frequency may be recorded by our government: the government knows who is using a VPN to watch YouTube or things we can’t get in the domestic news agencies, but I haven’t been investigated, so I think I will not be easily affected by this information that I access foreign social media. I haven’t been punished until now, so I just continue to use it. (25) Xiaohan Feng: Everything is OK, so far. Everything thing is going well so far. So, I don’t care what I buy online. Researcher: To what extent do you trust Tencent and Alibaba? Xiaohan Feng: I’m not sure, both of them are OK for me, at present. (9) Resorting to fatalism: ‘It does not matter’

Lastly, a fatalistic attitude was expressed by a minority of participants. Of course, many people in other countries conduct cost–benefit analyses and decide to keep using digital tools despite the risks to their privacy, because of their convenience. Some term these attitudes privacy apathy,17 others call them digital resignation,18 still others argue that they are simply reflections

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of pragmatism.19 The belief that technology’s developments are unavoidable also reflects a broader discourse that Shoshana Zuboff criticised as being the foundation of surveillance capitalism: the casting of Big Data as ‘the inevitable consequence of a technological juggernaut with a life of its own entirely outside the social’, with people relegated to mere bystanders.20 However, the participant’s fatalism reflected not only powerlessness but also the idea that if you can’t do anything about it, then it doesn’t matter. This way of coping with powerlessness has been noted in research on censorship in China. Surveys report that 49 per cent of respondents who say they have encountered censorship on the internet report that ‘it does not matter’ (wusuowei).21 Several participants admitted that they disliked having to use some of the technology and had concerns about the loss of privacy; they were, however, labelling their feelings and concerns as unimportant because they had no way to not use the technology: Yes, because it does not matter if you like or dislike WeChat, you have to live with it! Sometimes I don’t like it, because it is prevailing in your life all the time, except if there is no electricity, or I go to bed . . . otherwise it’s kind of err . . . inseparable from your life. Actually, I dislike it more than I like it! (7) I care that employees of these [e-commerce] companies know what I buy, but I can’t control that: if I don’t follow the rules, I can’t use it. (26) They can get the information on what I buy, it gets to my privacy. I can’t help that, I just let them do it. I know for sure they can get information on what I go through, what I buy. It’s getting too much to my privacy, but I can do nothing. . . . I think in China we do not care about our privacy, at least right now. . . . We can do nothing right now. Because we have to use the functions. We’re still shopping online. (8) ‘I can’t do anything about it’

As these excerpts show, the general feeling among these participants was they lacked control. They framed technology in broad terms such as ‘the information age’ and believed that this sea change occurred at the broad level of society and that, as individuals, they could not resist it in any significant way: Liu Liang:

I think we have a policy governing or regulating e-commerce . . . . it is inevitable in this information age. Researcher: In the West, some people refuse to use Apple Pay – they think that if Apple has their data, the United States government has their data too, so they use cash.

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Liu Liang:

It’s different, because we live in the information age and tomorrow, AI and 5G will change everything. We have to live with these kinds of new things and find a compromise. The most important thing is to govern by law-making. This is just the beginning of the information age, later generations will find a good way to solve these issues. (7) Researcher: And then there are smart watches, and Alexa . . . Wú Qing: Yes. I feel powerless to reverse the trend. (24) Yes, they know my pattern of consuming things, and the pattern of society’s consumption. You want the convenience: you have to sometimes . . . to some extent it’s inevitable. (12) It can’t be avoided that technology changes behaviours. Because on TikTok, they say that if you watch four videos, you are certainly to find one you like. We can’t control that. (27) Liu Liang, a university employee starting a PhD in the social sciences, used the vivid images of a train travelling at full speed: I haven’t thought about the end of privacy. We cannot escape this train, we cannot escape this train, we have to find a way to better survive in this society. The market, the society, the government, and people, these four sides, they need to find a common goal to solve these problems. (7) Moreover, some expressed the idea that the battle was already lost, echoing Genia Kostka’s findings that many citizens assume that the CPC already has access to their information.22 In this executive assistant’s words (note the pronoun ‘they’, again): Researcher: Is CCTV impacting on privacy? Lo Weiyuan: It depends on your personality, whether you pay more attention to this or not. They already have a lot of information on you, there’s no privacy anymore. (26) The lack of control was a prominent theme in the discourse of these participants, whether they were younger or older, or worked in the public or the private sectors: It’s like renting a bike with your mobile. On a lot of apps, you need to share your information; your location, for instance. We have no choice. We have no choice. (7)

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A foreign participant explained that in his view, Chinese citizens’ feelings of powerlessness stemmed not just from technology but also by the fact that the government announced detailed plans and then executed these plans just as forecast, so that there was no leeway to go against the plans: The government implements their plans. For instance, there was a museum exhibition of Shanghai urban planning, and you know they do what they plan: 99 per cent completion. People see that their house is going to be replaced by a high-rise building and they accept it. What are you going to do, what are my chances? (33) ‘I just accept it’

As a result of their perceived helplessness in the face of data footprints and surveillance, many participants resorted to resignation, sometimes marked by complaints: Researcher: On Weibo, people can see your posts. Ma Bao: Nobody can avoid it . . . . I don’t know how to avoid this risk; I just accept it. (25) Researcher: Do you think about the traces you leave when you search and buy things online? Luó Wen: Yeah, I  think it’s everywhere, you can’t avoid that. I  have watched Black Mirror, so I know a lot about that. Even though I’m concerned, I know that people who are really good can track your activity if they want, so you really can’t avoid that. We all know privacy is important but sometimes we just can’t protect our privacy. In the United States and Canada, they will say that for safety reasons they need to check certain things on your phone and sometimes even though you are careful you will leave traces there, you can’t hide that. Unless you know the technology very well and you can hide. I guess normal people just accept that, they can only complain, that’s the most they can do. (5) Several participants answered quite curtly that they had not thought of these issues and did not care about them: I never thought of that. It does not matter. With Big Data, now, there can’t be privacy, we can’t avoid that. (35) WeChat, Zhifubao [Alipay] know where and how much I  spend, that’s unavoidable so I don’t care. (21)

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Researcher: Does it bother you that WeChat knows everything? Xu Chonglin: I have never thought of it. It’s not a problem. (43) Perhaps the most vivid account of that stance was shared by a participant with whom I  got to spend time in an informal context, chit-chatting after lunch as we walked back to the office: We think it’s not useful, well it’s useless to spend time discussing the social credit system since we can’t change it. We are little potatoes; the government is always right; we need to obey. It’s like in Orwell’s book, Animal Farm. (52) Note that interestingly, this person did not refer to Orwell’ 1984 book, which is the most often cited in Western countries when discussing China. Instead, this person referenced Animal Farm, implying that a change in governance (in the book, from the farmer to the pigs) may not improve the situation. This thought reflects the view of a unique political power as unavoidable in China, as I discussed in Chapter 4. *** This chapter has analysed the first line of responses provided by 88 per cent of the participants when probed about digital footprints, cameras, and surveillance. The four main self-protective mental tactics that participants used to dissociate themselves from personal exposure to surveillance were (1) brushing surveillance aside with the rationale ‘there is no risk associated with surveillance’, (2) othering surveillance targets with the rationale ‘I am a small potato/a good person’, (3) wearing blinders based on the rationale that ‘so far it has not harmed me’, and (4) resorting to fatalism with the rationale ‘it does not matter because I can only accept it’. These responses constitute a range of rationales that may be analysed as selfprotective dissociation mental tactics. The next chapter analyses the participants’ discourse and reactions when I  was able to push the conversation beyond this first line of responses. It delves into their misgivings, unpleasant emotions, behaviours to limit their exposure to surveillance, and objections to surveillance. Notes 1 Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Demain la Chine: Démocratie ou Dictature? (Paris: Le Débat, Gallimard, 2018). 2 Graham Sewell, Surveillance: A Key Idea for Business and Society (London and New York: Routledge, 2021). 3 David Lyon, “Liquid Surveillance: The Contribution of Zygmunt Bauman to Surveillance Studies,” International Political Sociology 4 (2010).

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4 Sejin Paik, Kate K. Mays, and James E. Katz, “Invasive yet Inevitable? Privacy Normalization Trends in Emerging Technology,” Social Media + Society 8, no. 4 (2022). 5 Kerry Brown and Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping,” Journal of Chinese Political Science 23, no. 3 (2018). 6 Jean-François Billeter, Pourquoi l’Europe: Réflexions d’un sinologue (Paris: Éditions Allia, 2020). 7 Sewell, Surveillance, 143. 8 Graham Sewell and James R. Barker, “Coercion Versus Care: Using Irony to Make Sense of Organizational Surveillance,” The Academy of Management Review 31, no. 4 (2006). 9 Jason Pridmore, Michael Zimmer, Jessica Vitak, Anouk Mols, Daniel Trottier, Priya Kumar, and Yuting Liao, “Intelligent Personal Assistants and the Intercultural Negotiations of Dataveillance in Platformed Households,” Surveillance & Society 17 (2019). 10 Daniel J. Solove, Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011). 11 Jeff Ding in ChinAI, March 6, 2020, https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-86-privacyin-the-time-of. 12 Denise Anthony, Celeste Campos-Castillo, and Christine Horne, “Toward a Sociology of Privacy,” Annual Review of Sociology 43 (2017). 13 Cabestan, Demain la Chine. 14 Amy Chang Chien and Amy Qin, “In China, an App Offered Space for Debate: Then the Censors Came,” New York Times, February 8, 2021. 15 David A. Palmer and Fabian Winiger, “Neo-Socialist Governmentality: Managing Freedom in the People’s Republic of China,” Economy and Society 48, no. 4 (2019). 16 Genia Kostka and Lukas Antoine, “Fostering Model Citizenship: Behavioral Responses to China’s Emerging Social Credit Systems,” Policy  & Internet 12, no. 3 (2019). 17 Eszter Hargittai and Alice E. Marwick, “ ‘What Can I Really Do?’: Explaining the Privacy Paradox with Online Apathy,” International Journal of Communication 10 (2016). 18 Nora A. Draper and Joseph Turow, “The Corporate Cultivation of Digital Resignation,” New Media & Society 21, no. 8 (2019). 19 Deborah Lupton, “ ‘Not the Real Me’: Social Imaginaries of Personal Data Profiling,” Cultural Sociology 15, no. 1 (2021). 20 Shoshana Zuboff, “Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization,” Journal of Information Technology, no. 30 (2015), 75. 21 Bruce J. Dickson, The Dictator’s Dilemma: The Chinese Communist Party’s Strategy for Survival (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 22 Genia Kostka, “China’s Social Credit Systems and Public Opinion: Explaining High Levels of Approval,” New Media & Society 21, no. 7 (2019).

9 MISGIVINGS AND OBJECTIONS

Yes, I know the social credit system: it guarantees that people believe that police is with you everywhere. It’s like a mirror, so clearly the government knows everything, so you have to do the right things. The feeling of being monitored is not good, it feels like not being treated as a human, more like a lab mouse in an experiment.

With about half of the participants (47 per cent), I was able to push the conversation beyond the denial and self-protective distancing tactics analysed in the prior chapter. Digging below this first line of responses, I uncovered misgivings about surveillance, unpleasant emotional responses to it, behaviours to limit exposure, and even objections (i.e. explicit disapproval and condemnation of surveillance). This chapter begins by accounting for the participants’ awareness of and unpleasant feelings about a vast scope of surveillance issues. It then traces the behaviours that some of them enact to limit their exposure to surveillance and analyses how a fraction of participants challenged surveillance, questioning its efficiency, premises, and humanity. It then discusses the stronger negative attitudes towards an individualised surveillance that would single them out, than towards generalised surveillance applied to everyone. Lastly, it points out a disconnect between the discourse on the value of surveillance, which reflected the cohesive system of narratives discussed in parts II and III of the book, and the emotional rejection of it (e.g. dislike, resentment, worries, frustration, fear, anger); the misgivings arose when participants pondered how they felt about surveillance more than when they thought of surveillance. DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-14

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Awareness and unpleasant feelings

The participants were aware of a vast range of issues, from unsolicited commercial use of data to privacy loss, to restrictions of access and censorship, secrecy, and political control. When voicing their concerns, they expressed unpleasant feelings such as discomfort, disliking, resentment, frustration, apprehension, dread, and sometimes fear and anger. Unsolicited commercial use of data

In line with a growing wariness, in China, about commercial companies’ use of personal data,1 several participants had taken note of commercial companies using their data in a way that was unsolicited and opaque. While most expressed annoyance at such violations of their privacy, others found the experience downright scary. Unsolicited phone calls were a common complaint: Chang Ju:

Everyone can know and dial your number anytime, for things you have no interest in. Researcher: Do you mean commercial calls? Chang Ju: Yes, even strangers, it is not a good thing. (22) Researcher: Tencent or Alibaba could sell your data to interested companies – you may recall from different scandals that Facebook has done that? Xiaohan Feng: That is my concern. I don’t know who has my name and phone number. I get calls asking ‘do you need insurance’, ‘are you looking for a rental home’? I don’t believe this is from Tencent or Alipay, rather mostly from agencies, like the gym, the school, the English agency. They release that information. Because the topic was related to my daughter’s English class, so you can see the direction. (9) Several times, I noticed that a participant would express indifference regarding privacy, but when I  scratched under the surface of that ready-made answer, that person expressed clear annoyance. For instance, a salesperson in his late thirties began to answer my question about employees of Tencent and Alibaba who could access lots of information about him, with the classic framing of technology as in inescapable force not worth resisting: Hong Tao:

I would not mind it, it’s useless to worry, there’s nothing you can do. They created the platforms and Big Data to analyse customers data. (42)

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However, when I decided to try a direct and more provocative question, it gave way to a sudden flood of words that conveyed his frustration: Researcher: Is privacy still possible nowadays? Hong Tao: It’s impossible. I  know that because Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba are my customers. They can get data from their customers and build customer models with the traces. There’s no privacy, they trace your shopping and payments. Now they analyse customer profiles, to create a service to target ads. It’s advanced technology, there’s no way to totally protect your privacy. In foreign countries, companies also trace the data but there is stricter monitoring of the companies. In our country, it’s weaker. If I search for houses, the internet has this record and every week I  receive calls asking if I  want to buy a house. Or if I  need money, the calls go ‘do you want to borrow money’? Obviously, my information has been exposed. (42) Several other participants among the most educated, including two in the IT industry, spoke about hackers and worried about identity theft or telephone scams: If a hacker has my records and uses them illegally, it will definitely be harmful. (24) Researcher: Do you use Gaode maps [an equivalent of Google maps]? Xu Chonglin: It’s very convenient, I use it even if I know the way, because it gives me information on traffic. But the software knows what time you switch it on, and off, it has all the information and can label it automatically too, to recognize your home, your work. If this information is exposed, these locations can be known by others and stolen by bad people. It can have consequences. Researcher: Is it a trade off, then, between convenience and security? Xu Chonglin: Yes. China is a very suitable country for Big Data, there are bright sides if it is well used, but hackers can steal information. For instance, the check-in and check-out information at hotels has been stolen. (43) Yang Jie: I am not concerned that Alibaba or Tencent have this information. I am concerned that they are obtained by other people in other ways, for illegal phone scams. Researcher: What sort of phone scams?

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Yang Jie: Researcher: Yang Jie:

For instance, callers pretending they are the police or the tax administration and you are in trouble. Oh, I see, I also have these in Canada. It’s worse with AI: sometimes I hear that the voice is a computer, and then when you answer a real person will answer. It’s terrible. It’s not Alibaba or Tencent! I signed a contract with a company and one of their staff sold my information to other people. The government has restricted these activities last year. So, there is more and more concern with privacy. (12)

Several participants resented feeling watched and monitored for marketing purposes: Lo Weiyuan: They record the purchases online, yes, they have a credit score. I care about employees of these companies knowing, but I can’t control that: if I don’t follow the rules, I can’t use the websites. For me, it’s a problem. The good side is that with the data they supply a better service, the negative side is the privacy. Researcher: What do you think about Taobao recommendations? Lo Weiyuan: I don’t like that. As an IT [information technology] worker, I know everything you do leaves a trace. It’s part of the Big Data. (26) Researcher: What do you think about Taobao recommendations? Peng Shu: There are two sides, the positive is that it narrows down selection, it helps to make quick decisions; the negative is that you always feel monitored, and your habits are being watched. (51) These participants mostly resented the feeling of being used for purposes they had not chosen. For instance, Tang Zi, an executive assistant in a multinational, was not so much shocked by the fact that social media had helped elect Donald Trump, than by Donald Trump’s use of people’s data to achieve his goals: You know, President Trump, the fact that Facebook helped him win the elections, that’s not acceptable. If the system uses my data to help someone else [achieve their goals], this should be forbidden. (27) In North America and Europe, some people complain about their phones listening to their conversations or analysing their emails to send them targeted ads on Facebook or retail websites. This was also a frequent complaint in China. None of the participants who shared this experience with me

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approved of such unsolicited listening, and they were frustrated and worried about the opacity of the process: Sometimes it is scary: I speak about something, face to face with a friend, just the voice, and Taobao recommends me a related product. (24) Now there’s this concept of Big Data . . . they know the consuming habit of each person. Sometimes I find it strange that I talk with someone of a product, face to face, or on WeChat, and it shows on Alibaba! (15) Jin Shan:

What I dislike about WeChat? I’m not satisfied with the way WeChat protects our privacy. When I  discuss ‘Apple’ on WeChat, then the platform will push ‘Apple’ advertisement. We don’t know how this happens. Researcher: Does this happen when you chat in the groups, or on ‘Moments’ [the main page where users posts]? Jin Shan: Both! And then I see an Apple ad in Taobao too. Researcher: Do you think Tencent is partnering with other businesses to push ads? Jin Shan: Yes, I think so: this is the Big Data era. (14) Privacy loss

Some participants had not been thinking about privacy and surveillance prior to the interview. I was thus able to witness their train of thoughts and emotional reactions as they went from ‘WeChat is fantastic’ at the beginning of the interview, to examining WeChat in a different light as I hinted at the everyday traces that they were leaving. See for instance how Tian Haimeï, who had been living in the United States for some years, reflected on the perspectives she was discovering: Researcher:

If I pay my restaurant bill with WeChat, buy my books on the web, and book my cabs through Didi, I leave many traces of what and where I’m eating, what I’m reading, where I’m going. Tian Haimeï: That’s true, and it’s the same thing for Google maps: if you use Google maps you leave traces. Researcher: That’s a good point. Tian Haimeï: I don’t know, I hope they have good ethics, these companies. That’s a bit creepy, all this payment history through WeChat. I think that would be a disadvantage of WeChat, I imagine now, that’s some concern I will have if I use my WeChat for the daily payments there [in China]. (6)

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Only Peng Shu, who due to her work travelled frequently between China and Canada, uttered the word ‘surveillance’: Yes, your whole life is exposed. I heard that some people call that ‘surveillance’, we chatted about that here with [the person who introduced us; anonymized]. The cameras, facial recognition, they make people uncomfortable. (51) Yet other participants had clearly already thought about it. In contrast with Tian Haimeï, who plans to remain in the United States, Luó Wen, a PhD student who intended to return to China, offered a quite articulate assessment of privacy loss: If you become a very famous person, I don’t know how you should protect your privacy. Maybe you shouldn’t use an iPhone at all. You have to have a very high technology or a private phone to use and all the other things to be aware of. But for a normal person, you can only accept. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic. It’s better in the US, there are not many cameras. But in China, they are everywhere. Almost every place has CCTV. [She pauses] It’s also for safety issues, it’s easier for the police to track what’s going on, to catch robbers . . . it’s just that being a normal person you know that you are being watched [nervous laughter]. Also, now in China you’re not allowed to use a VPN. And to post on the internet you need to have your personal information there, like your ID information, you need to register to post any information on the internet. So, all your activities are watched, and unless you have a VPN but it’s illegal to use a VPN right now, so it’s hard, yeah . . . (5) In a long flight back to Canada, my neighbour, a Shenzhen bank manager, was curious as to why I had gone to China. Hearing I was a scholar interested in WeChat, he blurted out: The police monitors Weixin [WeChat]. You have to be careful, you can’t do anything illegal. (18) This statement that cut short to the preliminary dance I had orchestrated with so many participants startled me so much that I caught myself checking who else could be listening to the conversation. We began a conversation on surveillance. He had installed security cameras at home but only outdoors because he thought the government was watching the camera feeds. He had pondered the benefits and risks of doorbell cameras in a way lacking in many users of popular home

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camera services in the United States, such as Ring. As I asked whether he thought using cash was still an option for sensitive purchases, he laughed and explained: Tencent and Huawei in Shenzhen work with the government. Cash is also monitored because the banknotes have serial numbers. I  know because I work in a bank! (18) In the same vein, Jin Shan, a construction worker, summarised the loss of privacy in a dramatic way, saying that only inner thoughts can remain private: Jin Shan:

For me, your ID information is not private anymore, the only real privacy is what I think. Researcher: Yet if you buy books on Alibaba, this may reflect your thoughts too? Jin Shan: Yes, this is how the society works now, we need to accept it. Even if you buy the book with cash, if you take your phone with you when you buy it’s not totally private because the tech companies can use your phone to listen to you. (14) The way participants analysed privacy and surveillance reflected the underlying moral narratives pointed out in the first part of this book. For instance, compliance to rules was constantly talked of and called for: You cannot, say, borrow money from the bank, you cannot cheat the bank. If you break the rules, you’re going to be in trouble. The police has your ID, the bank has your bank account. Four banks belong to the government and the other banks also work with the Bank of China; they record any details on the customers. They can shut down your accounts and you can’t buy anything anywhere. If you use your ID at any hotel, they’ll find you. If you break the law, it’s more serious now. (32) Likewise, they viewed privacy loss as a concern because it implied growing inability to hide anything, whereas hiding served important social purposes (see Chapter  5). For instance, Lǐ Nuan, an international office university employee, pointed out that secrets were hard to keep: Lǐ Nuan:

This is a problem. Now the internet develops, and WeChat and Alipay are just by-products. It’s the internet that makes everybody visible, all the time. So, if you would like to be an active user of the internet, then that is difficult to avoid. In case there are secrets you have to hide, you have to be really

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cautious about such things. Otherwise, for daily necessities I think it is fine. Researcher: But I am wondering, if you do have secrets to hide, is it still possible at all? Lǐ Nuan: I don’t think so, I think they know everything. [Sad laugher]. I am not an expert in internet security. I’m thinking the messages I send will be seen, I treat them like that. (15) Contrary to the popular belief that younger generations are becoming increasingly aware of privacy and surveillance issues, several participants were of the mind that older generations were more aware; note that these participants, in their mid-twenties or early thirties, already considered themselves to be of an older generation, as people in China tend to view a generation as spanning 10 years: My generation values privacy more. They [the young generation] were born in the internet stage, with cell phones, WeChat. Their awareness is not that strong. Our generation, we experienced the change from no internet to internet. (41) Maybe in the Chinese culture, privacy is not advocated in the family or the society. Privacy is a new concept. The younger generation has not experienced historical troubles. (24) Hu Lei, the Baidu defector, concurred with this assessment: Researcher: Is the younger generation more aware of privacy? Hu Lei: Actually no, even if it’s a bit counterintuitive. Their requirements for privacy are lower. They grew up in the international stage, their need to express themselves is greater than their concern for privacy exposure. They use TikTok, they proactively upload videos about their daily life. It’s proactive privacy exposure instead of protection. Researcher: Will they be more careful if the social credit system is implemented? Hu Lei: Yes, I think they will. (47) Hu Lei also explained that large and small organisations, too, were wary of surveillance and tried to protect their information. She explained that Baidu forbids their employees to use its own Baidu cloud, for fear that some departments would spy on other departments. She also said that many companies do not trust WeChat with their work conversations; for instance, Baidu’s

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Occupational Morality and Information Safety Committee recommends not using WeChat for work: Hu Lei:

I use WeChat frequently, at least 50 times a day, for work and life. In China, it’s been interesting. Before WeChat, many companies did not have their own communication tools, so many chose WeChat. Information privacy has been problematic, so some companies developed specific tools. Dingding by Alibaba has replaced WeChat in many companies. I  have worked at Baidu. It’s common sense in IT circles that all the information you communicate, all the files you send, Tencent has access to that. We have a committee responsible for occupational morality and information safety; they asked us to not discuss information related to work on WeChat. Small companies can’t develop their tools, so they choose Dingding, but the larger companies won’t use Dingding either. Information security really matters. We have Baidu Wangpan [Baidu cloud], where you can have an account, it can be public or not. Baidu forbids its employees to use it for work. Researcher: Who are they afraid could access that information? Hu Lei: Their employees! People from other departments. As for QQ and WeChat, the government can also request to access information for reasons of public security. (47) Restrictions of access and censorship

To probe about restrictions, I most often took an indirect approach, quoting reports that say using a VPN or buying certain books could lower someone’s social credit score. I  also asked naïve questions about things you can and cannot do in China. The restrictions mentioned by the participants pertained to Western media and books, travel, and demonstrations; the dominant feeling was frustration with the restrictions and their opacity. For instance, Gao Shu-hui, the English teacher, shared: It becomes more difficult [to use a VPN], the free ones don’t work. It’s a problem, recently. (28) Others used language, such as ‘constraints’ and ‘barriers’ that suggests they felt personally limited by the restrictions: In China there are not many demonstrations, regulations sometimes constrain us. (36)

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Our generation, we have more constraints. When I  was young, we had access to YouTube and Facebook. Things go in a spiral; I hope the current restrictions are a temporary barrier until we develop. (24) Alongside frustration, the restrictions also elicited fear: Researcher:

And if you wanted to buy a book that criticizes the government? Xiaohan Feng: You can’t do that in China [she laughs]. Once, I  bought such a book in Taiwan, but at the airport my mother asked me to throw it away. Researcher: Why? Xiaohan Feng: My mother went through Wenhua dageming [the Great Cultural Revolution], they are afraid. (9) To inquire about participants’ thoughts about censorship, I  asked whether there were things they would not post on WeChat or Weibo, or that were considered ‘improper’. Most participants answered carefully, presenting the matter in terms of rules, and national security: As an IT company, we have to obey the rules. We can’t post certain information such as violence, anti-government content, or adult content. (35) Using a VPN should not be linked to the blacklist. There are interesting things about foreign countries. But if you comment on sensitive topics, or use some keywords, you can be fined. The government controls Tencent right away: when you create a group, they send you a reminder that you cannot discuss some topics, or any politics. If you do, you cannot enter the group anymore, and they can shut down your account. (32) Moreover, the following excerpt illustrates the constant doubts that people have regarding the veracity and credibility of news: Sometimes on Moments, some articles are deleted. Sometimes I know it’s the truth, maybe the truth [she laughs]; sometimes it’s reasonable, sometimes not. If an article is a rumor with a bad intention, it’s reasonable to delete it. (38) Have you heard about the Huawei case? The US just signed an emergency ban on Huawei. You don’t know if Huawei really caused problems or it’s just the government, some smoke, or strategy, I have no idea . . . (6) One participant I  got to spend more time with alluded to the censorship regarding the 1989 Tiananmen student demonstrations and their repression:

Misgivings and objections  223

PKU [Peking University] is an interesting place because it is freer. For instance, many students from PKU were on Tiananmen. [Note the vague phrasing; he does not venture saying the date or the nature of the event; it is for me to grasp that referring to ‘students’ and ‘Tiananmen’ in the same sentence can only designate these events; he glances at me to check if I  did grasp that and continues.] That’s why this year, for the October 1 celebrations [the 70 years anniversary of the People’s Republic of China], 2000 students were chosen from PKU. Tsinghua and PKU, lots of paradoxes. (52) Two foreign participants married to Chinese spouses also pointed out the extent of the censorship regarding the 1989 Tiananmen protests: History is not well known in China. When I showed videos of Tiananmen to my wife, she cried. She had not known. During sensitive times such as the Tiananmen anniversary, they control the content of WeChat posts and messages as they are created, in huge rooms at Tencent’s offices in Shenzhen. They look for specific keywords, such as Winnie the Pooh, which designates Xi Jinping. (11) Researcher: Might people who remember 20th-century history be concerned about the social credit system? Harold: History? My wife did not know about 1989. After World War II, people did not discuss atrocities. For us in Germany, it took time to do the ‘Aufarbeitung’ [the historical appraisal and reflexivity that took place after World War II through civil society debates and education], and it was done to excess. In East Germany, many perpetrators remained untouched because the government did not want to discuss that. (50) Secrecy

Moreover, several participants expressed unease regarding the government’s lack of transparency and the secrecy in which some programmes were designed and implemented, as noted in Chapter  7. Some comments implied that the government was actively concealing the extent and goals of surveillance to its citizens, in an anticipation that they would object all-encompassing surveillance: There are cameras on the street, they know if you visited your parents, and the books you buy. People don’t know, the government and individuals don’t advertise the real purpose. (1) I have visited the camera platforms at police station, there are also cameras that you don’t see, that are less obvious. (20)

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These comments were particularly elaborated regarding the secrecy of the social credit system. Wú Qing, a market survey analyst who had studied abroad and was a member of the CPC league, was very open during the interview. Note how she brought up the idea of secrecy: Researcher: Do you find the idea of having a score for each person scary? Yes, because I don’t know how it works, how it’s used. It seems Wú Qing: to open the door to have every citizen monitored. [Silence. She switches to Mandarin and looks destabilised for the first time of the interview]. Maybe the monitoring power of the media and the institutions in China is not powerful enough to support such a scoring system. [Note the denial tactic I analysed in Chapter 8]. It must be more like a secret system. Usually, we don’t mention it in public life, most people don’t know how it works. If the public knows it exists and they are all being monitored, I think it will be . . . [silence; she hesitates] they will object, they will strongly object. Because they don’t know how it is scored actually, what kind of thing will give you a low score, what kind of purchase, people don’t know the details of the system. If they know that each of their action will contribute to the score, I think it’s quite horrible to . . . [she did not finish the sentence.] (24) The secrecy idea was also brought up by Hu Lei, the Baidu defector: Researcher: Hu Lei: Researcher: Hu Lei:

So, you don’t think the social credit system can be implemented? It can be, but not publicly. Because people would not like that? [Silence.] I would not support it. [She has become serious now, weighing her words]. (47)

With the current President, there’s no more Google or Facebook, they want to control the information, and control people’s mind. Maybe in the first place it was for fi nancial purposes but then . . . it’s behaviours that they want to control. (1) The German participant concurred on the lack of transparency and the suspicion that the extent and goals of the social credit system may be actively concealed from citizens: There is no transparency. If I were a resident, this would scare me because the scope of the system can easily change, step by step, and then you are like a frog being boiled. They won’t even notice, and if you don’t notice consciously, it’s not there. You don’t see the forest for the trees. (50)

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Political control

A few participants hinted to political control on the internet: Researcher: What may the social credit system change for people? Qian Ting: Surveillance is a fact of life for Chinese people. We have always been surveilled. They know everything. Researcher: What about people whose score goes down because they criticize the government? Qian Ting: [She laughs, exasperated with my question]. Everyone criticizes the government in China. That’s not an issue. What you can’t do is organize [protests, demonstrations]. There you get into trouble. (4) Only some middle- and upper-class people criticize the system for its lack of freedom and privacy. You can criticize a little, you can criticize a local officer, but not the society, the system, or a higher up. (18) The social credit system, in particular, was pinpointed by four Chinese and a foreign participant as serving political goals: Anonymized: 1984, Orwell, the score is like that. This book is out of stock, now, I  have a friend who works for the publisher, and she told me it will not be reprinted. Researcher: In your opinion, how relevant is this book for understanding people’s attitudes in China right now? Anonymized: Many people just survive, they don’t have the time and energy, they don’t know if there is another road. Sometimes I think that the government makes people work a lot so that they don’t have time to think. Researcher: Some people in the West worry that the social credit system could be unfair; is this a concern, do you think? Hu Lei: I remember a story from a colleague who was from Xinjiang or Tibet. He had applied to university in Beijing and in that process, a policeman from his hometown followed him to monitor him and make sure he was just a normal person willing to enter university to study and nothing else. For a long time, the policeman followed him and then finally the police station withdraw this resource and he wasn’t followed anymore. (47) With the current President, there’s no more Google or Facebook, they want to control the information, and control people’s mind. Maybe in the first place it was for financial purposes but then . . . it’s behaviours that they want to control. (1)

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The social credit system is the dream of any strong government. Do they have a deeper concept, or are they just testing? They are facing huge problems, such as [financial] bubbles in the economy and inequalities between the rich and the poor. If there is an economic collapse, will it trigger the demise of the CPC? The Chinese government is preparing for that, building up. They introduced monitoring and rules to enforce penalties. They are connected with private companies, and they gather the data. To actively control 1.4 billion people: I guess this is what they have in mind, because of the challenges they face. (50) Ma Bao, the young auditor who was a member of CPC, went to great lengths to justify the political use of the social credit system – note how he uses the pronoun ‘we’ when discussing CPC, and the country: Ma Bao:

Another question is what is good, who decides what kind of actions is good. In China I think, compared with Western countries, the most, the biggest difference might be that, under our political system, behaviours that might harm the government or have some negative influence on the CPC, this kind of behaviour will be regarded as bad. But the other behaviours that will be regarded as negative might be the same as in Western countries. The biggest difference, I think, is the political . . . [he says it in Chinese, searching for the English translation] preferences? No, the political stance. And then this changes to a political issue, I think. Because the goal is very clear, that our government, our country just wants to, everyone to, how to say, to recognize the political system we are in. The other behaviours, there will not be too many restrictions. Researcher: You said earlier that if this is implemented, people will think they are not free? Ma Bao: Yes, some people might think about that. Sorry, when you say free, what do you mean? Researcher: Free to do what they want? Ma Bao: Hum, at least I don’t think so [he smiles]. Because the biggest problem is just your political stance. Other things, the more personal data, the government is not interested in daily life behaviour, like whether you smoke or drink too much alcohol, these things might be quite small for the government. It’s impossible to close all the gates. Our leaders should know opening is good, the trick is how to guide the process of opening. There is still a difference between China and the West: under CPC leadership, all that harms the CPC, all regulations should avoid that kind of risk. We prefer to divide: we open the economy, not the political. (25)

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Behaviours to limit surveillance exposure

The most common reaction to concerns about digital surveillance and its risks was in line with ‘anticipatory obedience’.2 That is, if they knew what the rules were and specifically, what behaviours would lower their social credit score, several participants said they would censor their own behaviours in order to comply with the system’s reward/punishment criteria. For instance, this HR person working in a state-owned company did not approve of punishing the use of a VPN, as she had travelled abroad and did not consider foreign media to be as dangerous as the government claimed. However, she would change her behaviours to comply, provided she knew the rules (hence the importance of rules clarity as outlined in Chapter 3): Researcher:

What do you think of the social credit system as I  have explained what we know of it? Guo Chuntao: Some behaviours need clarification, for instance, using a VPN should not be listed as bad behaviour. I  worked abroad, I could see everything, it’s not different. Punish the use of a VPN, seriously? I  saw forbidden sites. In China, I don’t use a VPN. It’s not a problem. Researcher: I don’t know about that! The government seems to think it is a problem. Guo Chuntao: Yes. [She laughs but does not comment.] Researcher: May the social credit system be a way to control people? Guo Chuntao: [She does not directly answer the question]. It’s related to the specific content of punished behaviours: to improve my score, I  will avoid the behaviours that decrease my score, such as using a VPN. (38) Naturally, anticipatory obedience extended to not voicing political opinions, as Peng Shu explained: It depends on what the government wants to do. Two years ago, we could use Google, there was no problem. That’s not something that I appreciate. People have VPNs, my manager tells me that the government knows and closes their eyes as long as the use is not sensitive. Many of my colleagues don’t rely on CCTV [China Central Television] News. We realize, we do realize, and people have ways to look into other media. We only talk to people we know, it’s more like sharing information, it’s not against the government. I saw there are protests in Hong Kong, but never in mainland China. Some colleagues have a big voice, they will complain loudly, others just smile and turn away. In Shanghai, people don’t have a lot of interest in politics, not like in Hebei or Dongbei. My parents always say, if it is

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against the government, don’t say it out loud. When Xi Jinping changed the constitution, we were all talking and wondering, does this mean we have a king now? Not everyone was happy. People had different opinions. There is a diversity of opinions. Some people love the party, others hate it. (51) Moreover, some participants took actions to limit their exposure to surveillance. Several mentioned turning their phone location services off and one explained that she tried to use a regular taxi instead of Didi when she went out at night. Others used a range of strategies to protect the privacy of their online shopping, such as Tseng Wenqian who used a service that provides a temporary phone number and reroutes calls to the user’s cell phone, to ensure that her personal number stayed private: I’m the type of person who values privacy, where there is a strong risk. I use a nickname when I buy online so that it’s not my real name on the package, and I use the company’s address. China Mobile also has a service where they provide you with a phone number that redirects to your actual number but is not your number, I use that for deliveries. And I delete the label with my name before I throw away a package. (41) Wú Qing, the market survey analyst, pasted stickers on the QR code of her identity papers: Researcher: Are there things you would not share on WeChat? Wú Qin:

My own picture, I would only share it in small groups. My ID card, my passport, certifications about myself; some have a QR code, I put a sticker on the QR code. (24)

Pan Hung, a tech-savvy programmer, employed a variety of tactics: Pan Hung:

Others can know the content of your chats. If I buy something on Alibaba, my buying history is exposed. I  work in an IT company and I know these things happen. Some people know what I bought, who I’m connected to, many things about me, private aspects of me. Researcher: Is privacy possible at all? Pan Hung: Currently it’s difficult. I bought some medicine on the internet; maybe that record can be exposed and people will know my health condition, they can use it for marketing purposes, to make recommendations to me. It can be good, but people may have bad intentions, they can sell your data to a hidden industry, on the deep web.

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Researcher: What do you do then? Pan Hung: I change passwords, I use many apps, and different accounts. I  use a fake name to buy online. I  use the cloud but not for important affairs, because the cloud is not safe. For instance, if you store an illegal copy of a movie, Baidu will delete it, so this means they scan your storage. Researcher: Is it discussed at Baidu, how to protect people’s data? Pan Hung: No, it’s not discussed. There is a department for information security, but they only protect their product, the company. (48) Luó Wen chose her communication channels carefully – this was one of the few interviews I did remotely and she may have worried that I was going to record the video; at the end, she confided: Some friends have asked me: for that topic, can we use WhatsApp? That’s why I preferred to talk to you over Skype and not WeChat video. At least it’s not owned by the Chinese government! (5) Another participant also suggested that people who use a VPN (when it’s not blocked by the government) prefer Western communication channels to discuss private matters: Some younger people like using Instagram, Twitter, they got a VPN. I’ve heard some friends, not my age, but younger – how often they use foreign social media. It’s not very convenient but you can find your way to do that. Maybe they have some more private things they can share using Instagram instead of WeChat. (6) Marginal but elaborate objections to generalised surveillance

A small fraction of participants voiced direct objections to surveillance, based on principles. Specifically, they rejected surveillance as (a) inefficient, (b) labelling, (c) inhuman, (d) a breach in equality between citizens, (e) based on punishment instead of education, and (f) restricting freedom. Surveillance as inefficient

Three participants, with varying levels of education and occupations but all working in private-sector industries in Beijing or Shanghai, pointed out that monitoring children or employees’ performance by means of cameras and algorithmic detection of emotions and attention levels was not adequate. They spoke of the quality and complexities of one’s job, and of the negative

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effects of these methods on children and employees’ motivations, who would not readily accept such monitoring: Researcher: What do you think of cameras in schools that try to recognise children’s emotions? Liao Bojing: I don’t like that. If you want to study, you study. You can’t force someone to study. It’s OK that the parents want to know, but it can have negative effects on the children if they know they are monitored all the time. They won’t accept that, they won’t study. Researcher: What about cameras in the workplace? Liao Bojin: I disagree with this policy. Without the boss watching me, I feel freer, I can focus on work more. If the boss is watching, I feel uncomfortable, pressured, it will affect my work. (34) Researcher: What do you think of cameras in workplaces that try to recognise workers’ emotions? Hé Gang: That’s bad, it’s not proper. We should monitor the performance instead of behaviours. Maybe I finish my work and leave early and you think I’m lazy, but I finished my work. (37) Researcher: What do you think of cameras in workplaces that try to recognise workers’ emotions? Du Jianyu: We don’t have that at my company. It’s not going to happen. People will fight! Researcher: What is the difference for you between cameras in the streets and in the workplace? Du Jianyu: Cameras in public areas, their purpose is my safety and security; in the workplace, their purpose is different. We work from home, performance is not just ‘sit here, do that’, it’s how you did your job. Researcher: What about cameras in schools? Du Jianyu: It’s meaningless. Parents want to watch children but if they do not work hard, it’s meaningless. We work hard, children study hard, there’s no need to spy on them, on me. (30) A fourth participant, Zhong Li, who worked in a state-owned company, pointed out that behaviours should be analysed in their context; she gave the example of using a VPN, which can be used for a range of different purposes. She was of the mind that a dichotomic treatment of that type of behaviours, for instance, lowering someone’s social credit score because they used a VPN, would not be efficient, nor proper: There is a difference in essence, whether they just use the VPN to scan news, out of curiosity for current affairs, because they want to see a different perspective, or if they share fake news, with specific intentions and purposes. (39)

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Surveillance as labelling

A second principled objection pertained to the labelling of people, based on behaviours or demographics, that the large-scale algorithmic monitoring implies. Ye Lan, an HR officer in a Beijing start-up, rejected the idea of labelling people as denying their complexity; she viewed such labelling as a black and white capture of colourful people. However, she was ambivalent as she approved of labelling in the context of preventive policing (which is also used in China, for instance, in Xinjiang and in the northern city of Harbin; I used the United Kingdom example to not appear to be judging China): Researcher: For instance, things that could lower your score could be buying a lot of alcohol, using a VPN, or the types of videos you ‘like’ on social media. If the details of the system are like you describe, it’s bad because Ye Lan: it’s easy to label people. This system would summarise people based on little meaning, for instance, I can buy alcohol but not do bad things, so the system infers things based on what I do. Human beings are kind and colourful, they are not that easy to understand [the interpreter explained to me afterwards that she meant the social credit system does not get to the nuances of people because they are complex]. I would not support that system. Researcher: In the United Kingdom, the police use algorithms to try and anticipate who might commit a crime and where, it’s called preventive policing. What do you think of that? That’s good. Ye Lan: Researcher: Oh [surprised]. Yet they also label people. How different is it from the social credit system? I hadn’t thought of that when I answered on the social credit Ye Lan: system. (35) A less ambivalent statement was made by Pan Hung, the programmer I quoted earlier, who was critical about the social credit system and concerned about potential abuse of that system: Researcher: In the United Kingdom, the police use algorithms to try and anticipate who might commit a crime and where, based on people’s demographics such as their education, the colour of their skin, or their economic background. It’s called preventive policing. What do you think of that? Pan Hung: This system is exaggerating! Do they really use this? [He looks and sounds incredulous]. Maybe it benefits the police because they can rest.

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Researcher: Yes, but people are labelled. Pan Hung: From the technical perspective, it’s very easy. Whether it makes sense, that needs to be discussed. Do policemen think this is valid? The colour of your skin, your economic background, that does not necessarily lead you to commit a crime. Again, what would be the consequences of such a system? (48) Surveillance as inhuman

A third principle that participants evoked, in vivid terms, was humanity. They saw camera-based surveillance and algorithmic scoring as dehumanising and ‘unnatural’, in part because they implied that surveilled people would have to hide their natural emotions. For Wang Lan, the dormitory aunt, privacy and intimacy were universal human needs that should be respected – note how she conflated privacy and face, as we saw in Chapter 5: Everyone needs privacy, every human. And animals too, for instance my cat, he does not want people in his own sleeping place. Everyone treasures their face. (45) Gao Shu-hui, the English teacher, was quite vocal about her objections to control as unfair and inhuman, when we discussed the social credit system (first excerpt) and censorship (second excerpt): Researcher:

Gao Shu-hui: Gao Shu-hui:

Researcher: Gao Shu-hui [speaking fast]:

The plan is to implement the social credit system on a larger scale next year. Some people say it’s to better control people. I hate control!! People can’t be controlled. (28) We are controlled by our government. When there are serious social events, there are many different voices, but we can’t search, they just delete, delete. They are fooling us! They think that if we can’t search it, we don’t know, but no, we have other ways. Weibo has a responsibility, it can do better, they should not always listen to the government. They display many celebrities, female celebrities, their new styles, their affairs, I don’t want to know. I want to know more useful things, interesting things. There are many ads, it’s very annoying. How could Weibo try better? There should be a better way to inform us, if you are a media. Why can’t we say our

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mind? They don’t care about us, they just delete our Weibo. It makes me feel uncomfortable. They didn’t give me a chance  .  .  . the news are also deleted on WeChat. The government have their ways  .  .  . I  don’t know how to fight against this. (28) Moreover, several participants rejected the implicit expectation of perfect compliance associated with the monitoring of emotions, which left no room for the occasional human need to rest or play, especially for children: Researcher: What do you think of cameras in schools that try to recognise children’s emotions? Zhong Li: I don’t agree. It’s a wrong technique. In primary school, your brain must rest. It’s not necessary to use technology to monitor children. Students should be comfortable, and that would stress them. It’s contrary to the human nature of people. (39) Most employees are motivated. It’s not good in schools to monitor performance with this. Children need to play. (26) Researcher: What do you think about cameras in workplaces? Ye Lan: I don’t want that. You should rely on trust, and guanxi [a reciprocal network of support and obligations in the workplace and beyond]. We don’t need that; employees should be trusted. Bad emotions won’t necessarily lead to bad performance: employees need time and space to digest bad emotions. It would make things worse. Researcher: What about cameras in schools that try to recognise children’s emotions? Ye Lan: That’s bad! Children need to relax, they need a comfortable environment. If they are monitored, they would need to act. It’s acceptable that children are sometimes distracted, they need to grow up naturally. (35) For adults too, several participants rejected injunctions to be always happy and performing, with no room left for negative emotions or the occasional unharmful mischief: Researcher: What do you think about cameras in workplaces? Ding Thao: We are humans, we won’t be happy all the time. It’s nonsense to pay according to emotions. It will hurt employees’ face, it would add stress to the job. (36)

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We are common people, we have positive and negative emotions. With a very transparent credit, we cannot expose our negative emotions because it impacts our credit. It requires that I don’t have any bad sides, it’s not natural. (30) My boss watches the cameras on his phone, he does screenshots of us when we play on our phones, to show others. This makes me uncomfortable. I don’t get punished but I don’t like being shamed by boss. It’s normal to want to play with your phone when we are not busy. (31) The matter of AI-enabled emotion recognition really pushed a button for many participants, which is understandable in light of the pressures to conform to the norms of the group and the importance that people place on being able to hide inner thoughts (see Chapter 5). For instance, Hong Tao, an IT salesperson, gave several reasons for disagreeing with the display of jaywalkers’ photograph. His arguments ranged from a pragmatic reason (everyone can be in a hurry sometimes) to a principled reason grounded in a human right to keep one’s face and emotions to oneself: Researcher: At some street crossings, if you cross at the red light, the camera will display your picture with your name; have you seen that? Hong Tao: [He scoffs]. I totally can’t accept this, it’s a violation of privacy. It’s a government request, probably, so I  can’t do anything about it. It’s a great harm to human face and self-esteem. Researcher: [Being the devil’s advocate] At least, it’s clear, you know the camera is here! Hong Tao: I  don’t accept that. Everyone has emergencies, it’s like the ambulance, they can break the rules. Posting people’s face to the public is problematic. Researcher: What about cameras in the workplace? Hong Tao: As an individual, that’s absolutely a violation of privacy. Everyone has emotions, they don’t want to expose them in the sun, most people don’t want that. (42) Even Ma Bao objected to emotion recognition in workplaces and schools, and thought that this level of monitoring was exceeding acceptable surveillance: Researcher: What do you think about cameras in workplaces? Ma Bao: [He chuckles]. It’s unnecessary, for sure. I  have seen that on Weibo and most comments [by readers on Weibo] are negative. The employees of these companies should decide whether they should stay or change jobs or try to change that policy.

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Researcher: And what do you think of cameras in schools that try to recognise children’s emotions? Ma Bao: I have seen that on Weibo too, and the majority of comments are negative. I didn’t see if these schools changed their ways after that. It will not be accepted by most young people in China. When we were young, we did not get that kind of treatment. The teacher will know if a student is interested but they don’t have to know everyone’s feelings. As an adult I don’t think it’s a good thing. It’s beyond the normal. I’ll accept they analyse me on my work, but emotions are your basic human rights, to express real feelings towards your colleagues at work. (25) Two of the strongest images conveying refusal of emotions recognition were offered by Wú Qing and Gao Shu-hui. They compared monitored children to lab mouses and robots: Wú Qing:

Sometimes, it is a problem. In my company, each floor has facial recognition, the company has a record of my schedule. Some companies have a device telling emotions, too. Researcher: Like in schools? Wú Qing: Yes. That’s horrible! As a student, it’s hard to be 100 per cent focused on class, sometimes you’re out of the lecture. The feeling of being monitored is not good, it feels as not being treated as a human, more as a lab mouse in an experiment. (24) Researcher: What do you think of cameras in schools that try to recognise children’s emotions? Gao Shu-hui: That’s scary! What you suggest now is scary! Oh . . . What kind of schools do these things? It’s not a good idea. That makes the students like robots [she straightens up, her face expresses shock and conviction]. Sometimes, they are not focused, the children, they are seven years old, they can concentrate for like 10 minutes. They would be distressed. You can’t use these technologies to force them to focus. (28) Surveillance as a breach in equality between citizens

The fourth principle that was evoked to rebut surveillance was equality between citizens. One participant pointed out that people were growing more and more aware of the fact that restrictions and surveillance did not constrain everyone in equal manners: Rich people can get away: they go to foreign countries; they find ways to send money abroad. (56)

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A few participants, who were very well educated, worried that social credit scoring may undermine equal treatment of citizens, as expressed clearly by Wu Zhan, a faculty who reacted with anger to my evocation of the rewards for high social credit scores: Researcher: From what we know, good scores would give access to rewards, for instance, faster or less expensive public service, and bad scores would lead to penalties, such as not being able to travel by plane or high-speed train, buy luxury goods, or enrol a child in private school. Wu Zhan: Reduced taxes? You [the government] should give us good services, you should not differentiate . . . Who gave you the power to differentiate us in that way? (1) Hu Lei, the Baidu defector, rejected both algorithmic management of employees (in the example she gave, algorithms that try to predict employee turnover) and the social credit system, on the grounds of employee and citizen equality: It’s a human rights matter, and a question of employee equality. When I do a salary review, if I see a list of people who might leave, should I make no resource allocation to this person, or on the contrary invest more in this person? Most people will invest in those whose records indicate loyalty. This discussion is philosophical. (47) If punishments in the social credit system restrict access to medical care, education, or employment, this is not good, it will reach the bottom line for ordinary people [the interpreter later explained that she means people can tolerate a lot but that is more than they can tolerate because these domains are important for them]. If the system is real, it would make the distribution of resources more unfair. Injustice would increase. The social credit system would worsen the situation. (47) Gao Shu-hui also referred to equality, as she pondered that the information provided to teachers based on cameras in the classrooms would widen the power distance between students and teachers: Researcher:

I’ve heard it’s also tested in universities; before they start a new class, professors would be given a scoreboard of the classroom with scores for each student, their prior grades, and learning strengths and weaknesses. Gao Shu-hui: Can the students see that? Even if the students could access, it’s not a good idea. There would be no more equality between students and teachers because the students don’t know what teachers do. (24)

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Education more than punishment

Although a rare occurrence, a few participants expressed doubts regarding punishment as a method to steer behaviours towards the common good and develop moral quality. These participants were the well-educated and vocal characters we have heard a lot in this chapter, that is, Gao Shu-hui the English teacher and Peng Shu the import–export manager: Children need to be protected from punishment because they need to grow up. Punishment is not a good way to make the children listen to the teacher, there are other ways. (28) It makes people very nervous. We have had these garbage sorting regulations in Shanghai since 2019. You have to throw the garbage away in the right category with a person standing there, and it’s linked to your social credit. The banks, the police of course, the electricity and water companies can follow if you have behaved, if your credit is low or high, and they decide if you qualify for a credit card, or a car. These are social requirements, if you don’t follow them, that’s the punishment, you will be fined. They all use punishment. (51) Moreover, a few participants, including some less educated persons such as Liao Bojing the hairdresser or Wang Lan the dormitory aunt, mentioned education as an alternative path: It’s OK to use rules to manage people, but it’s not OK to force me to do something. We should do something to change ourselves, it’s a matter of education. (34) Education is the best way to improve moral quality. (45) Furthermore, several participants thought that the development of one’s inner moral compass would be better options than blacklists or credit scores. They insisted that morality and motivation to study and to work must be intrinsic, that is, coming from an inner drive, rather than extrinsic, that is, responding to constraints and punishments: Researcher: What do you think of cameras in the workplace? Guo Chuntao: No, no, no! Employees have a high performance not because something or somebody monitors them all the time, it’s because they self-motivate. Because they are self-driven. (38) I think this should be morality. We should control ourselves and behave with inner morality. A score cannot change morality, it’s inner values. (14)

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Freedom

The correlate of a preference for education over control and punishment was a preference for free will, and more generally freedoms. I occasionally detected this preference in participants’ stance towards algorithmic recommendations on e-commerce websites: Jin Shan:

I don’t want to be sort of enslaved by technology, to let the technology interfere with my life. A cell phone is just a tool. Researcher: What if the website pushes something good to you? Jin Shan: If I need something, I will look it up myself. If it is pushed to me, I will not look at it. (14) Researcher: When you buy online, do you like the recommendations that the websites send? Guo Chuntao: I  sometimes like them, when I  want to buy things in my style, but sometimes I want to see something different. The technology is so advanced, they recommend only what I have, it’s boring. Researcher: Some people tell me they find it a bit scary. Do you? Guo Chuntao: I don’t like it, it feels terrible, like it can read your mind. (38) Alibaba recommends a lot of things, it’s very disturbing, it limits your choice. (23) The desire for agency also transpired in this intriguing practice of sabotaging chats: I don’t want to be confined to chatting. They [WeChat] want us to use it to chat, they provide this copy function. Sometimes I copy information again and again, just to do a joke. (14) Likewise, Lo Weiyuan, a data analyst with a bachelor, contended that the law should leave you alone if your conduct only affects yourself, as opposed to affecting others (a classic argument by John Stuart Mill3): Lo Weiyuan: No, I don’t like my life to be recorded. I don’t want someone else to evaluate my life. If I buy alcohol, it’s my personal thing. But if I’m drunk and I do something bad, then the police can find me. The drinking itself is none of their business. Researcher: Do you think people would support the social credit system? Lo Weiyuan: I support the system; it depends how it is used. Social credit system can be replaced by another word: information regulation. It will get better in the future. If it’s to give a better service, it’s OK, but not to constrain your behaviour. (26)

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Even Ma Bao, who was so politically aligned with the CPC, found the idea that his daily behaviours might impact his social credit score ‘not reasonable’: Ma Bao:

I  don’t know, it is not reasonable for me that my personal credit score is decided by this type of action, because I don’t know how the system operates. Researcher: Is it not the case already? Ma Bao: I don’t know what score I got. If people know their life behaviours will be recorded, or easily known by the government [pause], well some people will think they are not free anymore, they can’t do the things they want anymore. (25) Four participants expressed that freedom itself was an important value for them. They all worked in Shanghai and Beijing, in the private sector. One of them seemed to use the word freedom (ziyou) as the ‘Xi era discourse’ does, referring to such things as owning a home, travelling, and belonging to a country that has an important status in the world4: Researcher: For instance, things that could lower your score could be buying a lot of alcohol, using a VPN, or the types of videos you ‘like’ on social media. Tang Zi: I don’t like that! If I use the VPN to watch Korean drama . . . it’s OK. Researcher: What about if it’s to get news about Hong Kong? Tang Zi: I don’t agree. Everybody is free, the whole world is connected. Now we go to outer space, we can go to the moon [she may be referring to China´s successful first landing on the moon in 2013], that’s freedom. (27) However, the three others referred to freedom as opposed to constraint or control: Researcher:

For instance, things that could lower your score could be buying a lot of alcohol, using a VPN, or the types of videos you ‘like’ on social media. Liao Bojing: I have not heard that, and I don’t like that. There is no freedom if you are controlled. It’s better if you can do it by yourself. Researcher: Would you say it’s like treating people as children? Liao Bojing: Yeah, a little bit. Researcher: So, you’re saying that it’s OK to punish people who misbehave on a train, but not when they buy alcohol or use a VPN, am I understanding correctly? Liao Bojing: [at that point she asked what a VPN was and the interpreter explained]. If they use a VPN and do not follow the rules,

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Researcher: Ye Lan: Researcher: Ye Lan: Researcher: Ye Lan:

Hé Gang: Researcher: Hé Gang: Researcher: Hé Gang:



Hé Gang:

every country has rules, they need to be punished. But not for buying alcohol. (34) What are the advantages of the social credit system, in your view? To encourage people to do things that improve their score. But then, someone else decides for you what you should do? That’s why I think this system is bad. Some people told me that they approved the system because in China, people need to be regulated as if they were children. No! [She pauses and hesitates. The interpreter encourages her speak freely.] Everyone needs to get better. People have their ways to get better, we value freedom, it is very important to have no constraints. Freedom is a very comfortable state, in my opinion. (35) Blacklists are good to educate people. Could you get on the blacklist if you criticized the government? [Silence]. On Weibo, or WeChat, you can talk freely. If this system existed, it would be a constraint. Why do you see this as wrong? [He laughs, embarrassed]. We should not constrain people’s freedom. Freedom to speak freely is guaranteed by law in China. [Long silence.] Researcher [Making a different follow-up attempt] As far as we know, things that could lower your score could be buying a lot of alcohol, using a VPN, or the types of videos you ‘like’ on social media. It’s wrong to constrain people. (37)

Generalised surveillance of everybody versus being singled out

I spent a fair amount of time, in the interviews, assessing where the participants drew the line in terms of what they agreed was or was not fine to monitor and punish. I also wondered about the contexts and behaviours where they accepted being watched and the ones where they did not. At first, I had a hard time understanding certain paradoxes: for instance, I interviewed a campus security guard who asked upfront what my questions were going to be about and was nervous when I asked permission to audio record the interview; however, this person posted all sorts of things on WeChat and did not worry about that at all, despite the much larger audience he was posting to. When I shared my perplexity with the interpreter, she explained that people in China care more about their immediate environment than distant cameras or strangers watching those cameras, in line with the focus on social judgement I analysed in Chapter 5.

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I also noticed the visual language that several participants used when they objected what surveillance scholars term ‘the gaze’; for instance, ‘an eye over me’, ‘directed at me’, ‘stares at me’. In addition, several participants used pragmatic distinctions: whether cameras and other devices were ‘recording’ or ‘monitoring’, and whether they were recording them or everyone. For instance, they would say ‘It’s not recording you, it’s recording everyone’, or ‘they don’t monitor me’. One of my interpreters referred me to cross-cultural psychology research that argued individuals in China tend to have ‘a small self’, meaning they tend to think that they will not be seen because there are so many people to watch in China. This echoes the ‘weak self’ idea discussed in Chapter 5 and the ‘small potato’ rhetoric used as defensive mental tactic (see Chapter 8). It gradually became clear that the participants objected individualised surveillance, such as a camera pointed at their work desk or an individual social credit score, much more than generalised surveillance applied to all, such as cameras in streets or censorship on social media. This important distinction is very articulate in the following excerpt by Xu Chonglin, an IT support employee: Researcher: Xu Chonglin:

Researcher: Xu Chonglin: Researcher: Xu Chonglin:

Researcher: Xu Chonglin:

What do you think of cameras in workplaces that try to recognize employees’ emotions? This can be accomplished. Already six or seven years ago, software was already able to record what people do on computers, their typing, their movements, if they edit something, open a software, or go on a website [he refers to employee electronic monitoring, which is also used by Western employers5]. There is a version for personal testing, and an enterprise version. But I don’t think it tells you whether the eye is lazy or productive, it’s just the behaviours. And if they managed to recognise emotions? This would not be good. People have different emotions, in work and life. I would feel uncomfortable. Are you saying you would need to hide your emotions? No, everyone is sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy. But I don’t like the monitoring of emotions, it would constrain me. It would make me feel as if people were staring at me. What’s the difference for you between cameras in the street and cameras in the workplace? [he pauses to think]. There are differences. In the street, it’s social behaviour, national behaviour, it’s not focusing on me, the intention is not me. The meaning is to let us know what has happened, to prevent crime. But in the workplace, it’s an invasion of privacy. It depends where the camera is: in public

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places, parking lots, it’s OK because we need to monitor if bad things happen. But it’s unreasonable if it focuses on me. (43) Being singled out as a target of surveillance was the issue for these participants, whereas they viewed the idea of generalised surveillance as more acceptable. This is also expressed by Su Kueng, a transportation engineer: Su Kueng:

It depends whether the cameras monitor you intentionally or unintentionally. Researcher: So, for instance, you don’t like giving your fingerprints at the airport? Su Kueng: No, that’s OK. I gave them my ID card, so I don’t mind the fingerprints. It’s equal for every guest. It’s OK if the requirement is for every guest. If regulation is for all people, it does not hurt you. (23) Disconnect between narratives on surveillance and emotional reactions to it

Some participants clearly manifested their disliking of digital surveillance, their worries, unease, and frustration, as well as stronger emotional reactions such as dread, fear, and anger. There was an interesting decoupling between their narratives on the convenience and efficiency of digital surveillance, which were rooted in the cohesive system of narratives analysed in this book, and their emotional rejection of surveillance. Interestingly as well, this disconnect did not completely mirror the opposition between acceptance of generalised surveillance and refusal to be singled out: many participants had negative emotional responses to surveillance whether it applied to them in person or to everyone. Tian Haimeï, for instance, was very direct about her feelings towards privacy intrusions: Researcher:

Do you sometimes think about the traces you leave when you shop and do other things online? Tian Haimeï: I  thought about that and, actually, I  don’t like it. It’s so strong, now they are really sophisticated, all the big technologies, you search something and the next minute they will send me this app via Google or whatever website I open. I just think I’m . . . that part, that privacy intrusion, that part is creepy, I don’t like that I’m trying to find some ways to clean my search history or block them to trace what I watch, what I purchase, to watch my life. That part I don’t like, at all. (6)

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Some participants, especially those who had lived or travelled abroad or whose job entailed working with other countries, were well informed about the implications of digital surveillance. Peng Shu, for instance, recalled a documentary she had seen in Canada about facial recognition in China and how the coupling of someone’s face with their information from several other databases yielded a detailed portrait of them. In her account, we see a disconnect between her argument that facial recognition is useful to help track criminals, and her emotional rejection of it: They use AI to find criminals, they gather information. It makes me feel like I’m a number. They can see my face and know my age, my race, even my blood type, my height, my hometown, everything. I saw that in a documentary here [in Canada], I  had never heard this in China. If I’m one of them, the ones that they gather information on, and they do that to find criminals, it’s OK, but I’m not comfortable if it is used routinely. (51) Other participants learned of facets of monitoring they were not familiar with during the interview, and their facial expressions conveyed their dislike very explicitly: Researcher:

At some street crossings, if you cross at the red light, the camera will display your picture with your name; have you seen that? Guo Chuntao: I have not seen it. Punishment with a fine is OK, but displaying the picture on the street is not. It’s not proper. Researcher: Sometimes the picture is also displayed in TV shows. Guo Chuntao: [Cringing]. That’s not quite right. I agree it will be efficient, but I don’t like it still. (38) Likewise, in the two following excerpts, note the contrast between the discourse on national security, economic development, and stability (as per the pervasive system of narratives identified in this book), on the one hand, and the expression of fear and the clear refusal of surveillance, on the other hand: Pan Hung:

Alipay, WeChat, they compute your credit. Also, the internet policemen help keep internet safety to ensure national security. If you post bad things or improper things on Moments, you will be forbidden to post. Researcher: What do you think of that system? Pan Hung: Hum. [Silence] How can I say? [Silence]. It’s hard to discuss. Maybe it can protect us from crime, but maybe we feel fear if the system is abused, or if it is used incorrectly. (48)

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Researcher: Some people tell me it’s a trade-off between privacy and the economy? Wú Qing: If you want to get something good, you have to sacrifice something – you can’t have the fish and the bear at the same time [this is a Chinese proverb – you can’t have both because one is in the water and the other on land]. Maybe to develop the economy, a stable society is needed, maybe you cut down something, it’s simpler, it’s more efficient for the government to manage. I understand the reason, but I don’t want to be monitored. (24) Dislike of cameras was also grounded in an affect. Such dislike was felt regarding cameras in schools and workplaces even more than cameras in streets and public buildings. For instance, this IT support employee in a large Beijing company used very visual language to explain his discomfort: Researcher:

What do you think of cameras in schools that try to recognize children’s emotions? Xu Chonglin: I don’t think it is a good system. I disagree, it gives me a feeling of monitoring, it’s as if when I am working I have an eye over me, behind me. That would feel as a constraint. (43) Likewise, this HR officer recoiled at the idea of workplace cameras coupled with emotion recognition algorithms: I don’t like that much. It will influence your daily life: you are in different states with and without cameras. (41) Wú Qing, the market survey analyst, informed me that her company uses facial recognition at the entrance of each floor to record employees’ checkin and check-out times, as the old-fashioned punch clocks used to do. She confided that due to the long work hours culture at her workplace, she often left the office early, placing a handbag on her desk and giving her ID card to a colleague to check her out later. In this context, her objection to increased surveillance was pragmatic (she would not be able to slack off anymore), yet she also expressed it in affective terms, referring to disappointment at the distrust signalled by monitoring: My company is negotiating with an HR company to update their device [expand the system to put cameras in the offices and possibly recognize emotions]. If I like the company, the monitoring makes me feel like I am not trusted. I will be disappointed by that. If I don’t like the company, I’ll

Misgivings and objections  245

feel even more disappointed because such monitoring will make me feel more constrained. In both scenarios I would not like it. (24) Mo Baozhai, a hairdressing salon employee with a technical secondary education and a member of the CPC League, strongly opposed the pervasiveness of cameras at work. She argued that taking it easier at work when there was no customer did not constitute a crime that justified a reprimand: Employees hate it. Sometimes they feel a little lazy. The boss watches the cameras on his phone to monitor if an employee does something bad. Sometimes he does a screenshot, when people play on their phone, and sends it to the managers, so they tell employees they need to work hard even when they have no guest. I didn’t do anything serious; I did not steal or anything like that. It’s OK to monitor a bit but not all the time! (29) *** This chapter has discussed the vast scope of misgivings about exposure to surveillance. It has highlighted several tensions, between a relative acceptance of generalised surveillance that applies to everyone and a clear refusal of individualised surveillance that single you out, and between the participants’ narratives on surveillance as indispensable and their emotional rejection of it. The last chapter turns to another manifestation of how much digital surveillance weighed on participants: self-censorship. Notes 1 Samm Sacks and Lorand Laskai, “China’s Privacy Conundrum,” Slate, February  2019, https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/china-consumer-data-protectionprivacy-surveillance.html. 2 Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2017); Moritz Büchi, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Christoph Lutz, Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux, Shruthi Velidi, and Salome Viljoen, “The Chilling Effects of Algorithmic Profiling: Mapping the Issues,” Computer Law & Security Review, no. 36 (2020); Jonathan W. Penney, “Internet Surveillance, Regulation, and Chilling Effects Online: A Comparative Case Study,” Internet Policy Review 6, no. 2 (2017). 3 Christian Fuchs, “An Alternative View of Privacy on Facebook,” Information 2, no. 1 (2011). 4 Kerry Brown and Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping,” Journal of Chinese Political Science 23, no. 3 (2018). 5 Kirstie Ball, Electronic Monitoring and Surveillance in the Workplace (Luxembourg: Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission, 2021).

10 SELF-CENSORSHIP

It’s very hard to not listen to the government in China. [It can cause] many harms to you. The personal pressures are high.

The question of self-censorship is ubiquitous for anyone collecting data in China, whether with interviews, surveys, or by analysing blogs and social media activity. Scholars warn that one of the dangers of overt surveillance is the inhibition and self-censorship it causes, even if a person is not doing anything wrong.1 Some call the process of complying to expected behaviour and speech ‘anticipatory obedience’.2 In China, according to Kai Strittmatter, who was the Süddeutsche Zeitung correspondent in Beijing for several years, the pressures of having to monitor one’s speech and the permanent uncertainty about rules and expected behaviours result in ‘mass nervousness’.3 However, several surveys indicate that Chinese respondents may be more open than typically assumed in the West. For instance, Bruce Dickson, a professor at George Washington University, cites surveys in which only 36 per cent of urban Chinese state that government employees tell the truth.4 Sinologist Jean-Pierre Cabestan explains that many urban citizens search for information on blogs and a variety of internet sources that are more critical of political affairs than state media.5 A recent research project administered the same questions to two groups; the survey was presented as affiliated with a government agency to respondents of one group and as academic research to respondents of the other group. The group that answered the ‘governmental’ survey did not report higher trust in the government or the democratic quality of China, as would have been expected if respondents were censoring their answers; in fact, the opposite was found.6 However, these surveys date DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-15

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back a couple years, and it is possible that political wariness has grown with the increased grip of the Party on society since 2012. The methods Appendix explains how I  was able to negotiate access to research participants and how the interview guide evolved during the research. This chapter shares my experience of interviewing in a country where many topics are considered political. I discuss what I learned in the process of conducting the interviews and how I addressed the ethical challenge of discussing sometimes politically sensitive topics. Then, I explain how I  scrutinised the different verbal and non-verbal forms that self-censorship took in the interviews. Interviewing at the margin of politics A learning curve

In the course of the first interviews, I  learned to use the participants’ language: for instance, say ‘sensitive’ instead of ‘political’, as in ‘if someone writes something sensitive on Weibo’; say ‘the country’, ‘China’ and in some cases use the ‘parent’ metaphor instead of ‘the government’, ‘the state’, ‘the party’, or ‘CPC’. I  learned to prefer non-threatening sentences such as ‘if someone is put on the blacklist’ rather than ‘if you are put on the blacklist’. I learned to clarify that some ideas were the prior participants’ ideas or ideas reported in the media rather than my own; for instance: ‘a few participants told me that they have seen posts disappear on WeChat; is this something you have experienced?’ or ‘there are reports that your score could go down if you spend too much time playing video games’. I learned to avoid questions that were too naïve to be taken at face value – asking naïve questions is a classic interview approach where the interviewer asks a seemingly obvious question in order to elicit explanations or additional information. For instance, in an excerpt quoted in Chapter 7, I asked Luó Wen if there were many political posts on WeChat, like on Facebook, to invite her to discuss surveillance on social media. However, she sensed this was a rhetorical question and it made her nervous. I did not phrase the question that way in the following interviews. I learned to quickly change the order of the questions to not only adapt to the participant’s response, which I do in any research interview, but also to manage the tension created by ‘sensitive’ questions. From an ethical perspective, it was imperative to respect the participants’ boundaries and not cause harm, whether through psychological discomfort or through them saying more than what they were comfortable with. I alluded to this dance in the preface, in which I  cycled back and forth between easy questions that I  noticed participants loved discussing (for instance, what a person likes on WeChat) and more political questions around surveillance cameras, the

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monitoring of internet activity, or the social credit system. During the entire interview, I monitored the participants’ willingness to answer and comfort in doing so as we were progressing in the interview and decided to cut a question short or skip questions altogether when I assessed it was needed. I did not manage to get to all the sensitive questions with all participants, but I was able to discuss most of these questions with most of the participants. The most frequent sequence was a predictable one: easy questions first, followed by trickier questions fostering nervous laughter, hesitations, and agitated body language, at which point I returned to easy questions, waited for the participant to recover, and went for another set of trickier questions. However, some participants took me by surprise as they jumped right in with statements that I myself viewed as political; I could see the interpreter becoming uncomfortable too; then they said something we all thought was too daring and stopped speaking, such that I had to perform an ‘emergency landing’ with very easy questions or almost chit-chat to decrease the tension and get us back to a good enough place. For instance, Gao Shu-hui initiated this exchange about the censorship of foreign media and internet websites; I  was nervous because we were sitting in her classroom, on the children’s chairs, and I dearly hoped that the camera that usually records her teaching was turned off that day: Gao Shu-hui: Researcher: Gao Shu-hui:

Researcher: Gao Shu-hui:

Researcher: Gao Shu-hui:

Researcher:

Gao Shu-hui:

You want to see something about foreign countries. Why can’t we? Hum. I was told it is to protect the Chinese people. Hum [Silence]. In some respects, but not all. We should have the right to see what we want to see. Not block China [sic], what the media say, what happens in Hong Kong. Some people say, one reason is to block fake news. Maybe our government says it is fake! How do you know they are fake? You need to find out by yourself. [She stopped, as if realising what she just said. I changed the topic for a while, then tried to return to that topic.] Also, in China, there is a strong government. I just focus on my own things, I don’t think too much about that [this answer, after she had been so open, prompted my emergency landing into asking for simple demographic questions. Then I proceeded to conclude the interview and she felt good again.] Thank you very much for your time and for sharing your thoughts with me. Is there anything you would like to add before we end the interview? I’m happy to discuss with you. I don’t often think of privacy, of the government, of how it can harm us. (28)

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To regulate this back-and-forth ‘dance’, I paid special attention to the participants’ body language. I monitored classic symptoms of strain such as keeping silent for more than usual in a conversation, shaking the head, agitating the hands, recoiling in one’s chair, looking down, sighing, lowering one’s voice, or toying with one’s phone. I also identified among at least a third of the participants a specific set of mouth and jaw movements and sounds that I had never encountered in my interviews in France, the United Kingdom, Canada, or the United States. Let me explain these physical manifestations by describing them in the context of the interview with Wang Lan, an older ‘dormitory aunt’ in an elegant Chinese dress and a tight hair bun. Our interview lasted for two hours, after she has worked the night shift, so she was tired all along. Nevertheless, she appeared poised and gracious as she entered the room, and we exchanged the usual introductions. She started to answer my questions with careful statements about the importance of values such as obedience and virtue. Towards the end of the interview, as I was probing further and probably pushing her beyond her comfort zone, I noticed that she was talking more quickly and more fluidly, giving me longer responses that I made sure to encourage by nodding. Her body language also changed: she shook her head as if to express a strong ‘no’ but remained silent as she did; her eyes, lids and brows were agitated by winces and frowns; her hands kept going up and down abruptly, as if her body wanted to speak but the words would not go out (this is only my perception, of course; I, for myself, felt tremendous anguish during and after this interview). Her mouth, in particular, was the theatre of a cringing sequence whereby she would open her mouth as if to speak, then breathe, then pause and close her mouth shut, lips hard pressed together and jaws clenched. Then she would open her mouth again but instead of speaking, she would loudly swallow back saliva and whistle between her teeth in a way that unnerved me for a long time after the interview was over (I can still mimic that sequence). It was as if she badly wanted to voice her opinion and the words were there, at the tip of her tongue, urging to escape, and she was worried these words might very well utter her thoughts despite herself. The impression was so strong as she was battling these tensions that I, too, had my jaws clenched and had to remind myself to keep breathing and try to relax my facial muscles. Then, as she spoke, she alternated politically correct statements and objections to the social credit system and camera-based monitoring, back and forth, as if each politically correct comment bought her some kind of symbolic permission to express her objections: Researcher: From what we know, good scores would give access to rewards, for instance, faster or less expensive public service, and bad scores would lead to penalties, such as not being able to travel by plane or high-speed train, buy luxury goods, or enrol a child in private school.

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Wang Lan: [She remains silent for a short while, however her body is anything but silent: she is agitated, she winces, frowns, and whistles between her teeth, her body language clearly shows that she does not like the idea. When she resumes, her speech has become guarded]. If this is the case, that system can promote the improvement of moral quality. It will help people to obey plans and regulations.   [She pauses, clenching her teeth and swallowing back saliva in a cringing and loud manner. The words eventually exit her mouth:]   If every tiny behaviour is monitored, it’s a problem for privacy, it’s like you are exposed in the sun. For instance, if I want to go to your place and I don’t want him [pointing to the interpreter] to know, my behaviours will be known to others. It’s a problem to monitor people every day, it’s not proper. We can also improve moral quality through schools, from an early age. [Silence. Careful statement again:] We should treasure public virtue and good manners.   [Another sequence of pressed lips, saliva swallowing, with rapid lateral head shaking and abrupt hand movements. The words escape again, however the first sentence is careful:]   It’s a good thing in that it can help people to obey regulations but it’s a bad thing in that it is monitoring people. This is not necessary. We can use education to improve moral quality, we should not use that way [scoring people and punishing them]. And can this system really work? It is too complicated to have a score to judge people’s behaviours and use the score to access public services. The system could not contribute to improve moral quality; it has to be from the inner, from the true heart. [Silence] Researcher: From the inner, that’s very interesting. And what do you think of cameras in schools that try to recognize children’s emotions? Wang Lan: [This seems to be an easier ground to cover; her words flow almost immediately.] Is it reliable? What are the consequences? That, too, is unnecessary. If the children want to study, they’ll study without external constraint. They might be hurt; it might have the opposite effect. Cameras would be terrible for pupils; they care about their privacy. (45) Venturing on political terrain

When the participants ventured on political terrain, I was concerned about endangering the participant, the interpreter, or the pursuit of the project. In

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some instances, I chose to slow down the course of the interviews to ensure it remained on safe enough grounds. In other words, for ethical reasons I was constantly gauging the participants’ political wariness, trying to respectfully probe at the boundaries of their self-censorship, while also self-censoring myself to a great extent. Refraining from voicing one’s own opinions during a research interview is a standard good practice to avoid biasing the participant’s answers7; it’s always difficult to keep that discipline and not fall into the more usual format of a conversation where you agree or disagree with your interlocutor. But in the case of these interviews in China, I had to also refrain formidable urges to ask more daring questions, to pursue an avenue that looked so interesting but could end up making the participant feel bad about the interview and put the interpreter, my hosting colleague, and myself at risk of being ‘invited to drink tea’, according to the consecrated formula for when authorities chastise and warn you to be more careful.8 On one occasion, I was actually invited to drink tea. I had just had lunch with the interpreter in the campus canteen when a student came to us with a note written in English [he could not speak English; the note had been written by my host] inviting me to drink tea with the dean and my host. I was immediately escorted by the student to the dean’s office and spent an agonising 40 minutes listening to the dean as he explained the different steps to prepare tea in the proper Chinese manner, politely sipping cup after cup of white and green teas and nodding abundantly. Then he gave me tea from his hometown and signalled the meeting was over. My colleague later told me that she was regularly invited to drink tea by her dean without any advance notice and could not decline these invitations, however busy she was at the moment. So, it was just tea, after all. Or was it? On another occasion, fortunately the only one in this research, I danced the wrong steps and the careful approach I took to not causing discomfort to the participants and the interpreters fell short. The interpreter and I were conducting interviews in a state-owned company an hour away from the campus. The morning interview with the HR director went well, after which she took us to a very nice lunch in a Japanese restaurant. Upon our return, we were told that one of the two participants scheduled for the afternoon interviews had just cancelled. The interpreter asked if a last-minute replacement could be found. That interviewee, therefore, had not been screened by my colleague, the interpreter, or the HR director beforehand. It was Jia Qiang, who was a bus driver for the company. He was a tall broad-shouldered man in his forties. Perhaps I was particularly tired that day as we began the third interview; it was hot and we were in a room with large windows we could not open; or perhaps I was irritated by all the refraining I had to perform and all the tension I had to regulate. In any case, I missed an important information that Jia Qiang shared in the first half of the interview: he said he loved keeping in touch with his army buddies via WeChat, because he was retired

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from the army and missed them (the bus driver job was his second career). I should have paid attention, because my excellent interpreter added, as he was translating, that Jia Qiang had asked him not to translate that sentence. If I had picked up on his army affiliation, I would have trodden way more carefully than I did. And so, it did not go well: Researcher: I  heard that some things should not be written on WeChat; have you experienced that? Jia Qiang: [Vehement] No!! Our country is not like North Korea! Researcher: Hum. Would you write about the President, for instance? Jia Qiang: We don’t need to discuss the President; he is doing things right. Why would I comment on my President? I’m a Chinese, I love my country!! Researcher: [Taken aback] Well, I  love my country too and sometimes I may want to comment on President Macron. Jia Qiang: In our country, the President represents the common people, because we elect him. If we are not satisfied, we won’t elect him. We don’t need to comment on it. In other countries, there are different [political] parties that fight, it’s common to comment on who is in power. We have one dominant party. There are different policies in different countries. [Brief silence. With resolve:] This is too sensitive, I  don’t want to discuss this. I thought this interview was about technology! (40) At that point, I was very worried that he would report us. A quick look at the interpreter to my right made me even more nervous, for he was livid. I worked hard to assuage Jia Qing as he almost got up to leave the room and I did not want the interview to end that way, with him so angry. I explained that he was right, the interview was indeed about technology, and we had discussed WeChat, Weibo, TikTok, Alipay, and the social credit system because these were cutting-edge Chinese technologies. He calmed down a bit but remained upset. I asked a set of safe and easy questions to which he gave very brief responses, and then thanked him to end the interview. He got up, shook my hand defiantly. The interpreter thanked him on behalf of my host at the university, and I was relieved to see Jia Qiang accept the envelope containing the small amount of money compensating him for his time (see Appendix). However, as he exited the room, he turned back towards us and gave us the military salute. On the way back to campus, my interpreter and I were quiet for a while, both shaken and pondering what may happen next. My interpreter called me in the evening as he had received a call from the HR director; Jia Qiang had complained to her and she was not sure how to manage the situation. Luckily for us, she was an alumnus of the university and did not want to cause

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trouble to the professor who had invited me; she may have escalated the situation otherwise. The interpreter and I brainstormed late into the evening. Neither of us believed that debriefing Jia Qiang, which is a possibility when an interview has caused discomfort, would make him feel better. Instead, I offered to erase the audio recording of the interview; after all, I still had my written notes, and as I always write a great part of the answers, I would be able to reconstruct the complete sentences if I did that while they were fresh in my mind. The interpreter conveyed that proposition to the HR director, coupled with apologies for causing these tensions. We never heard anything more about that interview. However, the interpreter lectured me very earnestly the next day; he pleaded with me to quickly interrupt any discussion of the government that the participants would initiate and to strictly avoid taboo topics, such as the cultural revolution, Taiwan or the Tiananmen ‘incident’ as it is now called in China, qualifying these topics as ‘forbidden zones’. It took me three or four subsequent interviews that went without any incident to be able to venture again into greyer territory. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I  had several much more open exchanges with participants I was able to see several times. When they knew me better and the setting was informal, they expressed critical views on the current state of China and on the government. One of them noted that inequalities between the rich and the poor had vastly risen with the onset of capitalism, and he deplored the grasp of the CPC on just about anything in China. Another challenged Xi Jinping’s alteration of the constitution to become President for life, which at the time that it occurred, in 2018, was somewhat discussed on the internet but has since then been one of the greatest ‘forbidden zones’. With one participant in particular, I had conversations where I had no doubt at all that this person was speaking their mind. For instance, I asked this person: Researcher: I’m not sure I understand this idea that several persons have expressed: ‘I am a small potato’. After all, small potatoes did the French Revolution, did they not? Participant: Yes, but then people in power [the person stops]. When people gain power [the person stops, gets up and powers the mobile phone off]. The government knows that [the threat that unhappy small potatoes represent to a government], they are making lots of efforts to lift people out of poverty. The fu pin program [reducing poverty], it’s to ensure the stability of society. It benefits everyone. This person also told me that university students have ‘mentors’ who warn them if their behaviours are not proper and invite them to ‘drink tea’ if they say the wrong things, and explained that their background was screened

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when they applied to a PhD: ‘They sent a letter to my village, to inquire about my parents, my grand-parents, my ancestors. My father had to treat the person in the village [at that point, the person was tearing up]’. According to this person, the personal archive that we discussed in Chapter 2, the dang’an, ‘is not that useful. When you are in government, you can change your dang’an, you can erase parts of it’. We discussed the cultural revolution and this person confided: Even if my family was hurt fifty years ago, my father chooses to forgive, we choose to forgive. History can’t be changed. I can try to make things better, at least to make us strong enough to protect us from the government, by being in the Party. Those were rare exchanges, however. In the next section, I analyse the different ways in which self-censorship manifested itself in the interviews. Self-censorship in action Claiming lack of education or knowledge

The first self-censorship manifestation I  noticed was participants claiming lack of education, or lack of knowledge and understanding, to disqualify themselves and disengage from my question, when they did not want to discuss a topic they deemed political. Following two excerpts are typical of those responses; to be fair, these two participants were a migrant worker in a hair dressing salon and Jia Quiang, who only had high school education. However, their body language was indicating so much reluctance that my interview notes show three exclamation points to mark my disbelief at the reason they gave for not commenting: [Whistling between her teeth, as if she was swallowing back words together with saliva] I don’t know about the blacklist, I’m just the one who opens the doors at the hair dressing salon. (29) Researcher:

Jia Qiang: [recoiling in his chair, agitated]

 nother participant told me that recently, A a VPN user was fined for 2000 RMB, so maybe using a VPN can decrease your score as well? I won’t comment on this, because I am low educated. (40)

In the following excerpt, I  asked Luó Wen, a PhD student, whether she thought the younger generation was likely to challenge surveillance. She

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began to answer my question with a sincere statement on powerlessness; while she did so, she spoke slowly, softly, and her face showed signs of embarrassment. However, she then saw a way to answer my question without venturing further into statements that may have exposed her: she claimed she lacked the knowledge to understand political issues; as she expressed this view, she spoke much faster, raising her voice with new confidence, as someone who had been drowning and just found a wooden plank to grasp: Researcher: Do you think the younger generation is going to challenge being watched? Luó Wen: Ah . . . Oh [embarrassed]. I guess if we had more power, but right now if you just are a nobody . . . you can only complain, no one is going to listen to you. I mean the powerful people won’t listen to you. But other people, like you, they may have similar concerns, they just don’t know how to express it. [She is more confident, now, exclaiming] There are some political issues we don’t really understand, we don’t know, we just need to observe what will happen in the future. I  still think that, regarding the economy, China will continue to evolve, to progress, but regarding the political, I don’t know. (5) Participants also claimed to lack education, knowledge, or opportunity to reflect when I asked about where China was going – which, when asked by a foreigner, may be viewed as a question on the political system. While the first excerpt in the following is from a taxi driver with high school education, the second is from a human resources manager with a master’s degree, working for a Beijing start-up: Researcher: Where do you think is technology headed in China? Shi Ping: I can’t see clearly, I’m a small potato, a little citizen, I do not have the knowledge. (44) Researcher: What if you have bad parents, I mean . . . how do you know the government is a good parent? Ye Lan: My feeling is that life is becoming better. I’m optimistic. Researcher: How do you see the Chinese system evolving in the future? Ye Lan: [hesitates] It’s a remote question, I have not thought a lot on this. [Silence] I’m optimistic [her now trailing voice, as well as her floor-fixated gaze signal it is time to change topic.] (35) As I  have analysed in Chapter  8, many participants minimised the scope and ambition of the social credit system, arguing that the system must in fact be only financial, like Western credit cards scoring. This confusion is

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plausible as the broader scope of the system is not common knowledge in China.9 However, it is also plausible that some participants answered that way in a form of self-censorship, because Chinese media tend to frame Western critics of the social credit system, like any human rights-based critics, as two-faced attempts to destabilise China.10 Careful participants would, therefore, make sure they were not seen as supporting suspicious Western critics. Avoiding politics

The second form that self-censorship took was avoidance of politics. Interestingly, participants did not claim that they, themselves, were not interested in politics; they made a collective statement that ‘Chinese people’ or ‘we’ were not interested in politics. These all-encompassing claims in the mouth of well-educated citizens, including two university professors who had travelled abroad, had a cliché and stereotyped colour that made me think they reflected common propaganda; I may have thought them more sincere if they had been personally endorsed: We can just accept the system and hope that people who govern get better. It’s not like in the West, where you believe that you can change things, and you have political discussions. On Weibo, most posts are about personal life and travels. (2) Cai Huang Fu: Researcher: Cai Huang Fu: Researcher: Cai Huang Fu:

Yes, Alibaba knows everything, but in China most people don’t care about it. Why? What they buy does not have a direct influence on normal people’s life. Do you mean that most people in China are ‘normal’ people? Yes, it’s the 80/20 rule: 20 per cent of the people will care about 80 per cent of the things and the other 80 per cent of people will just lead their own life. (19)

When I  interviewed Han Dongmei, who had lived in a European country, I had been introduced to her by a family member; we turned off the phones and the conversation was freer. In the following excerpt, she explains the different reasons why, according to her, most Chinese citizens do not involve themselves in politics. Interestingly, she identifies the role of ideological education in kindergarten and schools, which Zheng Wang documents in his book Never forget national humiliation,11 yet she does not distance herself

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from the claim that Chinese people are not interested in politics. Her thinking combines seemingly paradoxical thoughts: (a) an active refusal to be involved in politics (‘I don’t want to know about politics. It has nothing to do with me’), followed by (b) a claim that she sincerely does not care about politics (‘honestly, I’m really not interested in politics’), and lastly (c) the idea that political involvement may incur a personal cost and that therefore it makes sense to not get involved (‘maybe, with the social credit system, if you ask for permission to demonstrate, it can be linked to your score. So, people here are not interested in politics’): Han Dongmei: The media in the West, their task is to pick up on bad things. It’s very different here. On Yahoo, the media joke about the United States, the President, it’s very normal there, but it makes me uncomfortable. As a normal person, I don’t want to know about politics. It has nothing to do with me. The big boss of China . . . different people may have different orientations about that, I think it’s best for China now. Researcher: You’re right about the difference in media’s coverage. Personally, I do care about some political issues, for instance I care about women’s rights. Han Dongmei: Even in kindergarten, children sing songs with lyrics such as ‘I love my country’, ‘I love the party’. My friend posted that on WeChat and it shocked me, but I was also educated like that. I only think this now because I went abroad. Researcher: Is it because of this education that you say people in China don’t care about politics? Han Dongmei: The process of education can shape and cultivate people’s ideas and development. Most people don’t think about politics. Researcher: Is it a way to protect yourself? Han Dongmei: No, honestly, I’m really not interested in politics. In Europe, many young people are also not interested in voting. When people demonstrate in Europe, Chinese people say: ‘They have too much free time!’, ‘I have to work!’ Maybe it’s because in China, laws can’t be changed. They say you can demonstrate, but that’s not true. And maybe, with the social credit system, if you ask for permission to demonstrate, it can be linked to your score. So, people here are not interested in politics. Even people in the Party, and in the government, it’s just a job, they do not have so much interest in politics.

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Researcher:

Some participants told me it’s a pragmatic attitude too, that it’s no use to think about what you can’t change. Could this be an explanation too? Han Dongmei: Yes, it goes back to Laozi. Europeans like to debate, it’s normal there. Also, many people just survive, they don’t have the time [to get involved in politics]. (49) It’s hard to know whether people like Han Dongmei truly do not care about politics or whether they have interiorized that it’s in their best interest to distance themselves from politics. Her initial statement ‘I don’t want to know about politics. It has nothing to do with me’ echoes an anecdote shared by Süddeutsche Zeitung correspondent Kai Strittmatter, about ‘people who choose not to think’: a Chinese young woman travelling in a tourist group in Taiwan was approached by a member of the Falun Gong movement who showed her posters presenting evidence of torture on Falun Gong members in China. She ‘put her hands over her ears, squeezed her eyes tight shut, and started to stamp both feet on the ground like a little girl, shouting “I don’t see anything! I don’t see anything!” ’.12 Experts concur with this view that many Chinese people join the Party mostly to benefit from its network and career opportunities, as is discussed in a lively Chinese whispers podcast with Kerry Brown, the director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, and Victor Shih, a professor at the University of California San Diego.13 Avoidance of politics resulted in selfcensorship not only of speech but also of actions (for instance, choosing not to petition or demonstrate as Han Dongmei alludes to) and career choices. Ma Bao, the smart young auditor, seemed to consider political careers with a mix of vivid interest and wary caution: Researcher: You have been speaking a lot about China’s [political] leaders. Would you be interested in becoming a leader yourself? Ma Bao: In China, the first thing is to become a member of CPC. I don’t want a political career: my risk acceptance is low, and politics are risky. But I’d like to be an advisor. I became a [CPC] member when I was a university student, in political sciences. You are more easily heard by [CPC] leadership [when you are a CPC member]. (25) Expressing embarrassment

The third form that self-censorship took was a series of successive silences, interjections expressing hesitations and embarrassment, and nervous laughter. In some cases, this series opened the door for an open comment, as in the excerpt I quoted in Chapter 9:

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Researcher: What do you think of the social credit system? Pan Hung: Hum. [Silence] How can I say? [Silence]. It’s hard to discuss. Maybe it can protect us from crime, but maybe we will feel fear if the system is abused, if it is used incorrectly. (48) In other cases, the tension was resolved by a return to safe discourse: Xiaohan Feng: If I trust the bank, I need to trust Alipay and Tencent. The big companies, they have good branding, good culture; also, they are linked to the government. The government should control this. Researcher: So, you’re saying that because they have ties to the government, you feel it’s safer? Xiaohan Feng: Hum. [Silence] How to say. [Silence] Hum. [Silence] Maybe. [tense laugher, then new silence] Mostly, I think so, because I trust the bank, and it belongs to the government. (9) Saying too much and stopping dead

Fourth, several participants acted as if they had said too much: they uttered a comment fast and with energy, then began to hesitate or act nervously, then stopped dead; I waited a bit and when they did not pick up the conversation, turned to an easier topic (I had marked these moments with an asterisk as I was taking notes during the interviews). These participants were all younger participants, below the age of 30 (except in the last excerpt) and had all been exposed to Western cultures either extensively during their studies or through their work: Researcher: So, do you like this idea of being able to evaluate people with the social credit system? Wú Qing: Partly [she chuckles]. It will still have negative sides, so . . . Researcher: What negative sides? Wú Qing: Like an abuse of monitoring. Researcher: What could be an abuse? Wú Qing: [speaking fast, almost as if a flow of words was escaping her] After the Second World War, in East Germany, people were monitored. Researcher: That’s true. And what do you mean with this? Wú Qing: Each person had a profile of what they did every day. Hum. [Silence] There’s a lot of tragedies that happened at that time. [Long silence] (24) Luó Wen: For example, for me, I  watch certain videos, I  will be careful about cleaning my watching history. Although I know that

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Researcher: Luó Wen:

Researcher: Luó Wen:

Tang Zi: Researcher: Tang Zi:

Researcher: Tang Zi:

Researcher: Tang Zi:

if people really want to find out, they can still see that even though you clean. But you feel better if you clean your watching history [she laughs]. What kind of videos? [clears her throat] You know, certain videos are blocked in China, so if you watch them in the United States, maybe it’s better if you clean. Even though you are not in China? Yeah, people say that if you carry your laptop to China, customs sometimes will check your laptop, check your phone, so [silence] you’ve got to be careful about that. Maybe I just think too much. [Long silence] (5) If a platform tries to lead people’s behaviours, the government will try to control that. Maybe the government also influences your behaviour? There are always regulations from the government. For instance, you can’t search companies from Taiwan on the internet. Is that OK? There are two sides. The bad one is we can’t get some information for work [she works for a multinational], the other side is it helps to let Chinese people come together. Do you mean, it helps stability? We don’t want guns in China, it’s better in China than in the United States, so it’s better to forbid. It’s unavoidable to have limitations on people’s behaviours. [She has become agitated, toying with her coffee mug. We are in a public coffee place. A long silence follows.] (27)

I don’t understand why VPNs are forbidden, and why Facebook and Twitter are forbidden. No, it’s not to protect us, it’s not the reason. [Silence]. I don’t know how to comment on this [I changed the topic shortly after this as she worked for a state-owned company and her employment could have been at risk if she had been too explicit]. (38) Signalling to the interviewer

Some participants went beyond self-censorship and engaged with me to either signal almost explicitly that they had to monitor what they were saying, or signal that they were aware I  might be screening their answers for traces of propaganda. This created interesting exchanges on the matter of selfcensorship and propaganda. For instance, several participants complained that I was asking hard questions – typically, around surveillance – and then

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replied with safe statements about the good intentions of the government. However, Ye Lan, a human resources manager in Beijing, startled me with a direct protest, before she launched into fast-paced orthodox discourse, as if to make up for her confession: Researcher: You see, one reason why some people are concerned about cameras in the West is they don’t want to trust their government with their information. Ye Lan: [She appears very embarrassed. She laughs nervously and then exclaims] I am a member of the Party!!! Researcher: [Startled; brief silence as I ponder how to follow-up] Are you saying you would think differently if you were not a member? Ye Lan: In part, yes, because I am a member, but also because of the rapid economic development. The government has done many good things to our common people, our common people depend on the government just like children depend on parents, parents teach us and support us to grow up as adults and make a living for ourselves, so we get benefits from the government, so it’s not just because I am a member. (35) Two other participants who were familiar with Western views on China explicitly mentioned they were aware that they may be influenced by propaganda, or that I may be thinking that they were reciting propaganda (I quoted part of Yang Jie’s comment in Chapter 6): The Uyghur  .  .  . I  understand it can be propaganda  .  .  . my father was deported there during the Cultural revolution, at that time they were not forced to learn mandarin, they shared the government. But then there were terrorist attacks, and now it’s tougher. (51) There are 100  million members of the Party, so with their family, it’s 3,000 million. The party is not separated from the people, it’s not that the government can bully us and say ‘let’s make a policy’. There are the grandparents, the cousins; the party is deeply connected with the people. I hope you don’t think it’s propaganda. (12) Several other participants, all from state-owned companies, challenged the relevance of the questions I asked; for instance, Xiao Huian, a secretary in a real estate company, was nervous during the whole interview. I believe this was her first participation in a research interview, as she started reading from a note she had written as soon as I had introduced the purpose of the interview, before I was able to ask the first question. She gave me four reasons why technology was great in China, looked at me happily and must have

262  The mental and emotional weight of surveillance

thought the interview was over, because she looked puzzled when I asked the first question. I did manage to reassure her with a set of comfortable questions, but when I asked a more political question, she challenged it: Researcher: The government also has these records of you; do you mind? Xiao Huian: Why are you asking this? Researcher: In the West, some people think what you purchase is private information. Xiao Huian: The government won’t care as it is not important information. It’s just daily life, it’s not important. (16) Guo Chuntao, a human resource officer in a Beijing construction company, also pushed back on the social credit system questions: Researcher:

Could your score go down because of something you post on WeChat? Guo Chuntao: Are we discussing the score again? [Sounding annoyed]. It’s too broad, it’s not necessary to include [at the time of the interview, given her body language, I took that to mean it was not relevant to discuss the social credit system in the interview; she may have meant it was not necessary to include WeChat activity in the computation of the score]. (38) The most explicit occurrence of self-censorship was plain and simple refusals to answer, which in some cases were quite abrupt: Researcher: Jin Shan: Researcher: Ding Thao: Researcher:

Who do you think should protect their privacy then? We will skip this question. (14) In the West, some people just don’t like cameras. [Silence] Some participants told me that in China, people obey the government as they obey their parents?   Ding Thao. [He laughs]. This belongs to politics. [Long silence, and after 41 minutes of hard-won answers, I proceeded to conclude the interview there]. (36)

Others were more polite or apologetic, yet resolute about their refusals: Researcher: Zhong Li:

What do you know about the social credit system? I have heard about that. It alerted me, I’m more careful now to return the money. I’ll constrain my consuming behaviours and pay attention to cross the street at right time.

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Researcher:

There are reports that the score can also depend on what videos you watch, perhaps what books you read Zhong Li: [Interrupting me, and her stern look tells me she understands right away the political control implications of that possibility]: I  know. I  don’t use Weibo. I’ll be more cautious if this system includes more than the behaviours that break the rules. If I see sensitive articles, with strong comments or emotions, I won’t share them. Maybe they can monitor the books I buy, but this should be OK. Researcher: It seems that using a VPN could also be a problem; have you heard that? Zhong Li: I don’t know a lot. Some young people break though the wall. Personally, I  won’t comment on this. It has nothing to do with me, so I won’t comment. [Her facial expression changed, she does not look me in the eye anymore, she looks apologetic or withdrawn]. (39) Researcher: How would you feel if the social credit system as we have discussed was implemented? Lo Weiyuan: I don’t think the policy will be implemented. The government also cares a lot about personal privacy. The current system just records [data] on a special website and the government just takes the outcome of daily life, for instance, if you drive too fast. Researcher: It could be useful for the government to know if you use a VPN and watch certain videos, couldn’t it? Lo Weiyuan: Yes, it could be useful. The government also blocks many foreign websites. Researcher: So, maybe they would want to know what videos you watch? Lo Weiyuan: The government is trying to protect us. [Silence]. I don’t want to discuss that here. (26)

BOX 10.1  SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL WEIGHT OF SURVEILLANCE Almost nine out of ten participants (88 per cent) coped with digital surveillance by employing the dissociating tactics analysed in Chapter  8. The most prevalent tactics were resorting to fatalism (professing that ‘it does not matter’, 52 per cent of interviews), brushing surveillance aside (minimising, ignoring, normalising, and reframing surveillance; 48 per cent of interviews), othering targets of surveillance (‘I am a good person’, 45 per cent

264  The mental and emotional weight of surveillance

of interviews and ‘I am a small potato’, 29 per cent), and wearing blinders (‘focus on daily life’, 29 per cent and ‘so far so good’, 14 per cent). Some tactics were significantly more salient in specific categories of participants: the brushing aside tactic among women, participants under 40, and those with international exposure; fatalism among men, participants under 40, and those working in a multinational; othering targets among women; and putting on blinders among participants under 30, PhD and masters (exclusively), employees of multinationals, those with international exposure, and CPC members (exclusively). Between 31 and 41 per cent of the research participants spontaneously expressed concerns about or affective rejection of privacy loss (41 per cent of interviews), restrictions of access and censorship (33 per cent of interviews), and the political nature of that control (31 per cent of interviews). More women expressed these spontaneously, as well as more participants under 40, more educated participants, more employees of multinationals, and more participants with international exposure. About half of the participants (47 per cent) expressed objections to digital surveillance. This is more than those who spontaneously expressed concerns because I triggered responses when I asked participants’ opinions about potential uses of facial recognition in schools or workplaces. More women expressed concerns, rejection and objections as well as more employees of state-owned companies, more participants without international exposure and more participants who were not CPC members. Objections to being singled out were highest among participants with a technical secondary school education (perhaps because they are in jobs where they experience such targeted control). This is consistent with the findings of two quantitative studies where respondents with higher socio-economic status – higher income, education level, and urban hukou – were more likely to support social credit systems; an explanation for these findings may be that respondents with lower socio-economic status are often penalised by surveillance systems and therefore may support them less.14 More women and non-CPC members viewed surveillance as inhuman. The argument that surveillance could undermine equality among citizens was exclusively brought up by PhD and masters, and participants with international exposure. As many as 62 per cent of participants showed signs of self-censorship, either through avoiding topics, keeping silent, expressing embarrassment, or signalling that some topics were too sensitive to be discussed. The pattern of self-censorship shows similarities with those of concerns and objections to surveillance: it was more present among women, educated participants, multinational employees, and to a lesser extent employees of state-owned companies. This makes sense given that the more one discusses sensitive topics in a way that can be viewed as deviating from political orthodoxy,

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the more one has to choose words carefully and eventually draw the line. Little less than a third of participants (29 per cent) employed language and ideas resorting to propaganda. This was more common among men, participants with less education, and to a lesser extent, CPC members.

*** In all countries, people’s narrative are in part shaped by the education they receive and implicit cultural norms and historical complexes, such as the Chinese National humiliation complex.15 In China, where the state closely directs education programmes and the media, while closing off ways to access other sources of information such as foreign media, it is even more difficult to tease apart political speak, interiorised propaganda, shared cultural and historical schema, and the expression of personal views. By examining the layers comprising narratives in China, this book extends an invitation to readers to examine their own narratives and the elements of those narratives that may be shaped by cultural and historical schema. This chapter may also be informative for anyone who wishes to conduct research interviews on topics bordering sensitive issues, be it political issues in authoritarian countries or any other societal matter that needs to be handled with caution. Notes 1 Lawrence Cappello, None of Your Damn Business: Privacy in the United States from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019). 2 Moritz Büchi, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Christoph Lutz, Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux, Shruthi Velidi, and Salome Viljoen, “The Chilling Effects of Algorithmic Profiling: Mapping the Issues,” Computer Law & Security Review 36 (2020). 3 Kai Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State (New York: Custom House, 2020). 4 Bruce J. Dickson, The Dictator’s Dilemma: The Chinese Communist Party’s Strategy for Survival (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 5 Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Demain La Chine: Démocratie ou Dictature? (Paris: Le Débat, Gallimard, 2018). 6 Xuchuan Lei and Jie Lu, “Revisiting Political Wariness in China’s Public Opinion Surveys: Experimental Evidence on Responses to Politically Sensitive Questions,” Journal of Contemporary China 26, no. 104 (2017). 7 Miles B. Miles and A. Michael Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis  – An Expanded Sourcebook, vol. 2 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994). 8 Lorenzo Andolfatto, “Semantics of Tea Drinking: Online Writing and the Shaping of Counter-public Spheres in Xi Jinping’s China,” Positions: Asia Critique 30, no. 4 (2022).

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9 Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized. 10 Kerry Brown and Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, “Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping,” Journal of Chinese Political Science 23, no. 3 (2018). 11 Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). 12 Strittmatter, We Have Been Harmonized, 250. 13 Cindy Yu, “Is Anyone Still Communist in the Chinese Communist Party?” Chinese Whispers, 2021, podcast audio, www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/is-anyone-still-commu nist-in-the-chinese-communist-party. 14 Genia Kostka, “China’s Social Credit Systems and Public Opinion: Explaining High Levels of Approval,” New Media & Society 21, no. 7 (2019); Chuncheng Liu, “Who Supports Expanding Surveillance? Exploring Public Opinion of Chinese Social Credit Systems,” International Sociology 37, no. 3 (2022). 15 Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation.

CONCLUSION

The conclusion discusses the implications of this book’s contributions to the understanding of digital surveillance in contemporary China. I have identified a tension between participants’ narratives on surveillance as indispensable and the mental and emotional burden that living with surveillance entails: this tension can be used by anyone who has a stake in understanding digital surveillance in China, including international organisations working on AI regulations, as an analytical lens to monitor how the resulting unstable equilibrium may shift. Second, this book characterises the narratives that shape participants’ surveillance imaginaries in China as systemic, polycontextual, and moral. The understanding of surveillance imaginaries as systemic, polycontextual, and moral can be leveraged to address important research questions on surveillance imaginaries in other countries. Implications for Chinese studies: how may the unstable equilibrium shift in the future?

This book has identified a tension between participants’ discourse on surveillance as valuable and indispensable, which reflected the cohesive system of narratives discussed in parts II and III of the book, and the mental efforts and unpleasant feelings that surveillance triggered in them. This tension illuminates the complexities of Chinese citizens’ attitudes towards surveillance captured in recent opinion surveys, social media, and scholarly discourse. This section builds on the book’s core arguments to shed light on recent evolutions of public opinion and regulations regarding privacy and data collection by

DOI: 10.4324/9781003403876-16

268 Conclusion

companies, and on the acceleration of digital surveillance triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent evolutions of public opinion and regulations regarding privacy and data collection

Academic surveys have regularly found high approval rates for surveillance technology in China (see Chapter  2). I  believe that these findings can be understood as respondents’ conscious cognitive views on surveillance, and that they obscure citizens’ costly defence mechanisms and unpleasant emotional responses to surveillance. Moreover, these findings capture support for generalised surveillance as it applies to everyone, as opposed to agreeing to being singled out by surveillance. These seemingly supportive attitudes reflect the pervasiveness of the narratives framing digital surveillance as redeeming China’s moral shortcomings. In a context where many participants express shame regarding the lack of moral quality of their fellow citizens (Chapter 3) and the lack of recognition of China on the international political scene (Chapter 4), and where privacy is seen as suspicious (Chapter 5), the government is perceived as providing benevolent protection (Chapter  6), and cutting-edge digital technologies are an object of pride for Chinese citizens (Chapter 7): the outcome of this system of anguishing versus redeeming narratives is that surveillance is framed as indispensable and relatively benign (a tool for rule enforcement rather than political control). Despite the strength of these narratives underlying surveillance imaginaries in China, concerns about personal exposure to digital surveillance are increasingly surfacing, particularly regarding biometric data. For instance, users have complained that Alipay identified them with facial recognition, even when the biometric payment option was turned off. There has also been vivid resistance to the collection of data by the face-swapping app Zao, which pastes users’ faces on the bodies of movie stars to create deepfake videos.1 A 2019 study reports that 70 per cent of respondents worried about privacy violations by facial recognition systems; several civil lawsuits have been initiated by citizens regarding facial recognition in public spaces, and several cities have restricted its use.2 Scholars also voice concerns; for instance, Tsinghua law professor Lao Dongyan’s article, ‘The Hidden Dangers of Facial Recognition Technology’, offers a full rebuttal of common arguments deeming privacy invasions as harmless.3 Likewise, Sun Liping, a prominent sociologist retired from Tsinghua University, explains that ‘If sheep don’t like to be tied up, it is not necessarily because they want to do something bad’. He argues that privacy is a part of dignity and that human beings intrinsically need freedom and trust. Citing Sartre, he explains that being surveilled reduces people’s agency by making them an object of a dominant gaze.4

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In what has been termed ‘China’s privacy conundrum’, the government is both engaging in massive surveillance of its citizens and responsible for protecting them from private companies’ infringements on their privacy as users.5 The 2021 Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) now regulates the collection and use of citizens’ data by Chinese and foreign companies; on that level, regulation converges with other international regulations such as the European GDPR. However, the laws’ provisions leave ample discretion to corporations,6 and several loopholes enable state agencies to invoke state secrecy or their statutory duties and responsibilities to not notify citizens of data collection and obtain their consent.7 While the PIPL co-opts Western language on privacy and human rights, it does not establish privacy as a fundamental right8 and serves CPC goals by addressing public concerns through regulation, regaining control of giant technology companies that were threatening the Party’s dominance, and holding local and provincial authorities accountable.9 The forthcoming Social Credit Law, of which a draft was made public in November  2022, also reinforces the central government’s powers by issuing clearer guidelines on data collection and punishments that leave less room for interpretation to local governments.10 Based on this book’s analysis, it seems plausible that the evolution of perceptions of digital surveillance in China, and of related regulations, will depend in great part on the government’s ability to maintain and strengthen the moral narratives that frame digital surveillance as a solution to China’s moral shortcomings. These narratives are currently strong; the symbolic saviour role assigned to technology transpires in scholars’ observations that privacy is often framed as being in competition with technological innovation and therefore sacrificed11; likewise, data security is discussed in a technopositivist way that eliminates matters of governance and reduces it to a merely technical issue that can be solved with better technology.12 Morality is also robustly engrained in the government’s official plans and regulations regarding data collection by companies and artificial intelligence. For instance, the regulation on algorithmic recommendations issued in August 2021 (article 4), translated by Chinese studies scholar Rogier Creemers and colleagues, explicitly positions ‘social morality and ethics’ at the same level as laws and regulations: Algorithmic recommendation service providers providing algorithmic recommendation services shall abide by laws and regulations, observe social morality and ethics, abide by commercial ethics and professional ethics, and respect the principles of fairness and justice, openness and transparency, science and reason, and sincerity and trustworthiness.13

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The acceleration of digital surveillance triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic

Many have wondered how the COVID-19 pandemic would impact Chinese citizens’ attitudes towards their government and the expanding use of technology to enforce compliance to confinement and other sanitary regulations. The normalising attitude that I have outlined in Chapter 8 has gained traction as citizens were required to download the Health Code and traveltracking applications on their phones. A Chinese interviewee in sinologists Haili Li and Genia Kostka’s 2022 study put it bluntly: I don’t mind if the government makes it [a social credit system application] mandatory, as I think we’ve all been quite used to the fact that we’re continuously required to take up various technologies like Health Code. For me, it’s just one more app to download.14 As digital surveillance accelerated and was retooled to fight the pandemic, the narratives identified in this book have intensified. In fact, responses to the pandemic in China illustrate the crucial symbolic roles of saviours assigned to the government and technology. Nationalism, for instance, has been fuelled by the framing of China’s response to the pandemic as highly successful compared with Western responses, furthering the ‘civilisational competition’15 I  outlined in Chapter  4. In the first stage of the pandemic, the reprimands made to whistle blowing doctors such as ophthalmologist Li Wenliang were met with pushback.16 Citizens countered the intense censorship surrounding the initial governmental response to the Wuhan outbreak by organising memory activism projects.17 Citizens from Hubei, the province at the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, complained of discrimination and some scholars supported them by criticising unnecessary infringements on individual rights.18 Soon, however, ‘patriots’ who supported the government’s zero-COVID strategy were opposed to ‘traitors’ who criticised the government’s response to the pandemic.19 As a result, the narrative of the government as a caring figure and a guarantee of order and protection intensified as well: in the word of Carwyn Morris, a digital Chinese studies expert, ‘good gaze surveillance governmental responses to COVID-19 that heavily survey the body – and thus life – are imagined to possess an ethics of care’.20 Thus, the rhetoric of surveillance saving lives turned to legitimise the government’s actions.21 The consolidation of the moral roles of the government and technology suggests that support for generalised and perhaps even personal digital surveillance may increase over the coming years. I  doubt, however, that the psychological cost of surveillance would decrease. Moreover, this evolution may depend on whether an awareness emerges in civil society of the collective nature of surveillance; a collective framing

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may foster negative perceptions of digital surveillance not only as it applies to self but also to others. In fact, Politics and international relations professor Chenchen Zhang noted dissonance in the extent to which the narratives of victimhood nationalism and civilisational competition were embraced, as early as 2020 in the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Citizens’ frustration and anger with the lockdowns and economic slowdown have since accumulated and the ‘white paper’ protests following the late 2022 Urumqi fire have led to the government abruptly ending the zero-COVID policy. Implications for surveillance studies in other contexts

To what extent are these narratives specifically Chinese or may they on the contrary shed light on surveillance in other contexts, and what does the book add to the current body of knowledge on surveillance imaginaries? I would argue that the Chinese surveillance imaginaries I have outlined in this book share some similarities with those identified in Western research, while diverging in important ways. First, what David Lyon calls ‘the culture of surveillance’22 was manifest and intense in participants’ discourse, where reciprocal, commercial, and state surveillance were considered a fact of life. Surveillance was actively normalised, even among expatriates who had been living in China for some years. The similarity with Western cultures of surveillance, however, is limited in that normalisation in China stems primarily from age-hold historical practices, and from a view of technology as a civilising force. It has deep roots, going back to the Western Zhou period (1045–771 bce),23 and is now enmeshed with techno-nationalism, a view that cutting-edge technology can reengineer society towards greater morality and propel China on its quest to prove to the world the worth of the Chinese civilisation. Second, the tension I have identified among the Chinese participants contributes to theories of the surveilled subjects, which examine how people who may not be aware of the multiple and lively data streams in their background, live with, experience, and feel surveillance and its normative prescriptions. This book studies the surveilled subjects’ experiences in the ‘flux and flows of everyday life’.24 As such, it documents a complex set of narratives making up surveillance imaginaries and delves into the mental and emotional weight that participants bear as they cope with surveillance. As noted by Kirstie Ball and colleagues, surveillance is both proximal and distant and the surveilled subjects often do not notice how enmeshed they are in data streams.25 The book sheds lights on what happens when surveilled subjects notice surveillance by providing an analysis of the mental tactics participants engage in and of the misgivings and unpleasant emotions they expressed. The realisation is in many cases unpleasant and painful both because people are faced

272 Conclusion

with the extent of their exposure and because of the inadequate picture that algorithms paint of them, as compared with their lived embodied identity. Third, the book extends and nuances Graham Sewell and James Barker’s analysis that many, in Western societies, view surveillance as both caring (when it is framed as protecting the majority from a deviant minority) and coercive (when it is directed at oneself).26 This book contributes to enriching our understanding of this paradox by differentiating between the abstract discourse on surveillance as caring and the mental and emotional weight of surveillance as coercion. I noted in Chapter 9 how many of the participants’ misgivings and objections arose when they pondered how they felt about surveillance, more than when they thought of surveillance as an abstract principle. This suggests a disconnect between conscious cognitions, which are heavily shaped by the cohesive system of moral narratives that underlie their surveillance imaginaries, and mental defence mechanisms and emotions. It would be interesting to investigate how this disconnect plays out in different contexts such as Western and Global South countries, and whether the gap between one’s discourse and affective responses to surveillance incur psychological costs in these other contexts as well. The book also nuances Sewell and Barker’s argument as the ‘surveillance as care’ argument, in China, is framed in specifically nationalist and culturally embedded meanings. The participants were not arguing that surveillance was legitimate or necessary in itself; instead, they grounded their support of digital surveillance in the history of their country (the century of national humiliations), in the size of their country (the idea that such as large country is very hard to govern and that chaos is a constant threat), and in the lack of education and ‘moral quality’ of their fellow citizens. The Chinese emphasis on the pejorative view of privacy also explains why their cognitions on surveillance were mostly positive; while positive views on surveillance also exist in Western societies, they remain more prevalent in China. In other words, their support for surveillance originated in a unique and emic set of anguishing versus redeeming narratives. It would be interesting to explore whether, in other settings, anguishing and redeeming narratives may be observed, perhaps in different combinations and with emic tweaks connected to the country’s history, culture, and governance systems. Fourth, the book’s argument that morality is the cornerstone of surveillance imaginaries, at least for the Chinese citizens who participated in this research, begets the question of whether surveillance narratives may be moral in other countries too. The shames, fears, and foils, as well as the dreams, hopes, and faith comprising the participants’ surveillance imaginaries rest on moral principles that define what constitutes civilisation, rightful behaviours, and worthy cognitions. It is likely that surveillance imaginaries in other countries also rest, at least in part, on moral principles because morality is also very salient in other contexts. In North America, it is reflected, for instance,

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in the moral construal of work ethic as a work devotion infused with religious accents.27 However, the specific content of those moral principles may be shaped by country-specific combinations of layers of historical, socioeconomic, and political contexts. Fifth, the strength of the surveillance imaginaries may vary across contexts. In China they are very potent due to intensive propaganda in education programmes and everyday communications, as I  have explained in Chapter 4.28 While the limited number of participants I was able to interview is of course not representative of all of China’s population, and in particular is skewed towards urban and educated citizens as I explain in the methods appendix, the consistency with which similar patterns emerged in interviews with citizens from different regions of China, different ages and genders, different educational levels, social classes, and occupations was striking. Independently from the extent to which the arguments of this book are specific to China or not, this book has provided an understanding of participants’ surveillance narratives as systemic and polycontextual. This understanding can be leveraged to conduct systemic and polycontextual analyses of surveillance imaginaries in other country contexts, paying attention to the historical, socio-economic, and political factors that shape mental schemas regarding surveillance and tracing the patterns of cohesive systems of narratives beyond China. In the words of Chenchen Zhang when she appraised my work, this book shows how ‘international imaginaries are always already part of the surveillance imaginaries’. I will conclude this book with an invitation. I have put forward an understanding of surveillance imaginaries as moral systems shaped by historical, socio-economic, and political contexts, in China and beyond. I hope that this understanding encourages readers to a critical examination of Western and other narratives, and of the socio-political conditions that explain citizens’ attitudes towards digital surveillance in different countries.

Notes 1 Rebecca Arcesati, “Lofty Principles, Conflicting Incentives: AI Ethics and Governance in China,” Mercator Institute for China Studies, 2021, https://merics.org/en/ report/chinas-social-credit-system-2021-fragmentation-towards-integration. 2 Ibid. 3 Lao Dongyan, “The Hidden Dangers of Facial Recognition Technology,” translation by Jeffrey Ding of Lao Dongyan’s WeChat post, October  31, 2019, www. readingthechinadream.com/lao-dongyan-artificial-intelligence.html. 4 Sun Liping, “Why Sheep Don’t Like to Be Tied Up,” translation by David Ownby of Sun Liping’s WeChat blog, August 16, 2022, www.readingthechinadream.com/ sun-liping-on-why-sheep-dont-like-to-be-tied-up.html. 5 Samm Saks and Lorand Laskai, “China’s Privacy Conundrum,” Slate, February, 2019, https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/china-consumer-data-protection-pri vacy-surveillance.html.

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6 Yehan Huang and Mingli Shi, “Top Scholar Zhou Hanhua Illuminates 15+ Years of History Behind China’s Personal Information Protection Law,” Stanford DigiChina, 2021. 7 Nicola F. Daniel, “EU Data Governance: Preserving Global Privacy in the Age of Surveillance,” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2022). 8 Rogier Creemers, “China’s Emerging Data Protection Framework,” Journal of Cybersecurity 8, no. 1 (2022). 9 Daniel, “EU Data Governance.” 10 Adam Knight, “Basket Case: Reform and China’s Social Credit Law,” China Law and Society Review 6, no. 2 (2023). 11 Min Jiang and King-Wa Fu, “Chinese Social Media and Big Data: Big Data, Big Brother, Big Profit?” Policy and Internet 10, no. 4 (2018). 12 Chorzempa, Martin, Paul Triolo, and Samm Sacks, China’s Social Credit System: A Mark of Progress or a Threat to Privacy? Policy Brief (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2018), https://piie.com/system/files/ documents/pb18-14.pdf. 13 Helen Toner, Rogier Creemers, and Graham Webster, Translation: Internet Information Service Algorithmic Recommendation Management Provisions (Stanford: Stanford University, 2021), https://digichina.stanford.edu/work/translation-inter net-information-service-algorithmic-recommendation-management-provisionsopinon-seeking-draft/. 14 Haili Li and Genia Kostka, “Accepting But Not Engaging with It: Digital Participation in Local Government-Run Social Credit Systems in China,” Policy & Internet 14 (2022): 852. 15 Chenchen Zhang, “Governing (Through) Trustworthiness: Technologies of Power and Subjectification in China’s Social Credit System,” Critical Asian Studies 52, no. 4 (2020). 16 Yuan Zeng, “Beyond Control and Resistance: The Dual Narrative of the Coronavirus Outbreak in Digital China,” in Political Communication in the Time of Coronavirus, ed. Peter Van Aelst and Jay G. Blumler (New York: Routledge, 2021). 17 Ibid. 18 Jeff Ding, “ChinAI,” ChinAI Newsletter, March 6, 2020, https://chinai.substack. com/p/chinai-86-privacy-in-the-time-of. 19 Zeng, “Beyond Control and Resistance.” 20 Carwyn Morris, “The Surveillance Vaccine: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Body Under Covid-19,” Made in China Journal 5, no. 2 (2020): 170–75. 21 Ibid. 22 David Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance: Watching as a Way of Life (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). 23 Min Jiang, “A Brief Prehistory of China’s Social Credit System,” Communication and the Public 5, no. 3–4 (2020). 24 Kirstie Ball, MariaLaura Di Domenico, and Daniel Nunan, “Big Data Surveillance and the Body-Subject,” Body & Society 22, no. 2 (2016): 72. 25 Ibid. 26 Graham Sewell and James R. Barker, “Coercion Versus Care: Using Irony to Make Sense of Organizational Surveillance,” The Academy of Management Review 31, no. 4 (2006). 27 Tracy L. Dumas and Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, “The Professional, the Personal, and the Ideal Worker: Pressures and Objectives Shaping the Boundary Between Life Domains,” The Academy of Management Annals 9, no. 1 (2015); Eric L. Uhlmann and Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, “The Implicit Legacy of American Protestantism,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 45, no. 6 (2014). 28 Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).

APPENDIX: METHODS

This appendix details how the interview and observation data were collected and analysed. It starts with participants’ recruitment, the interview guide and how the interviews unfolded. It then explains the content of the diary of observations and details the many steps of data analysis that led to inform the book’s ideas and structure. Recruitment of the interview research participants

The project started with a set of four informal pilot interviews with Chinese participants, focused on the challenges that technology and surveillance in China created for boundaries between work and life, and between the public and private domains. I  then drafted an initial semi-structured interview guide and an application for ethical approval from my university. Following approval (certificate #3480_e_2019), I  conducted two formal pilot interviews. Building academic collaborations in China was a long process that required significant investment on my part, and a fair deal of support from colleagues to establish trust. I built on existing collaborations and solicited new ones with colleagues who were giving talks or presenting their work in international research conferences. The process accelerated when I began sending short informal WeChat messages with the right positive emoticons instead of emails – which, on several occasions, never made it through the internet wall, anyway. In the end, I  received three invitations to conduct research interviews and deliver academic talks. My hosts agreed to recruit participants and interpreters for the purpose of this research. I had requested a diverse sample of participants in terms of

276  Appendix: Methods

age, gender, education level, and industry sector (public sector, state-owned companies, private companies, multinationals), to avoid sampling biases and capture a wide range of perspectives. My hosts either sent me ahead of time a list of potential participants with their demographics, as well as information on their employer and the position they held, or they worked with me in the first days of my stay to finalise the list. I also recruited ten participants through contacts in my own network. As I was analysing the list of scheduled participants for the first round of interviews in Chendgu, I saw that gender was well balanced; age was a bit more difficult as older respondents were harder to recruit; industry sector was balanced; however, the education level was an issue. Although the sample included a construction worker and a secretary, many respondents held a master’s degree and some held a PhD degree. I  asked whether we could arrange interviews with the university hotel personnel, where I was staying. This did not work out. However, I was able to over-represent lower levels of education in the next samples of participants in Shanghai and Beijing. These are the migrant workers working in hair dressing salons, the taxi drivers, the secretaries, the campus security guard, and the dormitory aunt that I quote in the book. The Shanghai and Beijing participants were compensated with a small amount of money. My hosts had not informed me of this practice as they may have thought it would embarrass me; when I noticed the small envelopes the interpreters gave, I decided not to interfere with the agreement between my hosts and the participants. All in all, I conducted 44 formal interviews (in formal research setting with a semi-structured interview guide) and 14 informal interviews, for a total of 58 participants. All participants were Chinese except three of the informal interviewees who had been living in China for a long time. The participants all lived in China, except one who lived in the United States. Fifty-four interviews took place face-to-face and four over Skype. Twenty-nine (50 per cent) of the interviews took place in English, 26 in Mandarin, and three in French. Table A.1 presents the detailed breakdown of the sample. Despite all the efforts deployed to contrast the sample in socio-demographic terms, the sample still over represents urban and educated citizens from large cities, as is the case for many other studies with Chinese participants. Moreover, it only includes participants from three provinces, and none from Tibet and Xinjiang where citizens may have different perspectives on digital surveillance. However, the inclusion of participants in Sichuan rather than only the cosmopolitan cities of Beijing and Shanghai, as well as migrant workers and workers from modest socio-economic backgrounds, makes the sample more contrasted than many others. To further understand the extent to which the themes and patterns analysed in this book vary across socio-demographic differences, socio-demographic analyses of which groups of participants, in terms of age, gender, etc., brought up which themes the most are provided at the end of parts II, III and IV of the book. Lastly, to establish generalisability, the chapters systematically compare the book’s findings with those of the recent

Appendix: Methods

277

TABLE A.1 Breakdown of the 58 research participants

Participant characteristic

Breakdown of the 58 participants

Gender

Women: 30 Men: 28

Age (years)

Under 30: 16 (youngest: 22) 30–40: 22 40–50: 9 Over 50: 11 (oldest: 60)

Education

High school or less: 5 Technical secondary school: 7 Bachelor’s degree: 13 Master’s degree: 22 PhD: 11

Parental status

Childless: 27 Single: 18 Married or in relationship: 8 Divorced: 1 With children: 29 Married with one child: 20 Married with two children: 9 Missing information: 2

Industry sector

Public sector: 22 State-owned company: 6 Private company: 20 Private multinational company: 10

Communist Party of China (CPC) membership

CPC members: 20 League members: 3 Not a CPC member: 14 Non-applicable (foreigners): 3 Unknown: 18

Current residence

Shanghai: 21 Beijing: 18 Chengdu: 16 Other Chinese cities: 2 US: 1

academic and grey literature and of the World Values Survey; the comparison shows that the findings hold very well within this body of research. Interview guide

I introduced myself as a French professor working in a Canadian university, in collaboration with the Chinese colleague who had invited me. I specified,

278  Appendix: Methods

as required by my university’s ethical board, that the interview was confidential, that the participant’s name would never appear in any report or publication, and that they had the right to not answer a particular question or end the interview at any point. Some participants took advantage of these options, as I narrate in Chapter 10. The interview guide is presented in the following. The initial interview guide was organised around a framework analysing three work-life boundary management challenges posed by technology: online self-presentation, constant, connectivity, and privacy.1 In line with qualitative inductive research, follow-up questions varied according to the initial responses of the participant, to allow them to express important ideas and themes that were not in the original questions.2 For instance, there were no questions, in my initial interview guide, about rules and punishment, about governance, or China as a country. These themes, however, were brought up by many participants and I asked ad hoc questions to understand their train of thoughts. Moreover, I gradually revised the interview guide to eliminate questions that only yielded obvious responses (such as questions on speed of answer to WeChat messages – everyone answered most messages very quickly) as well as questions that were too abstract and difficult to understand (questions on control and privacy as a ‘thing of the past’). I completely revised the questions on financial scores and social credit scores because many participants had only a vague idea of the social credit systems; I rephrased them to discuss their credit on Alipay and blacklists, before probing on potential other behaviours included in the social credit scores. I added a range of follow-up questions and examples, but only used the ones that I identified as the most relevant in the flow of the interview. I  added questions on other technology such as cameras, facial recognition, and emotion recognition cameras in schools or at work because the first participants very often mentioned these technologies. A few participants mentioned specific technology that left digital traces, such as GPS and navigation applications, Alexa-like speakers at home, pay with a smile equipment in grocery shops, driver fatigue monitoring systems in cars, police robots, and preventive policing; I did not add these questions in the interview guide but rather followed up when they were brought up and occasionally used them as probes in follow-up questions. In the following interview guide, the initial follow-up questions feature in parentheses, the eliminated questions appear struck and the added questions appear in italics. Introduction

How do you use Weixin WeChat]? What do you like in Weixin [WeChat]? What do you dislike in Weixin?

Appendix: Methods  279

WeChat Moments (self-presentation – extended to capture use of social media and e-payment apps)

What do you post on Weixin? For which types of friends? What do your Weixin friends post? Are there behaviours on Weixin that people usually dislike and avoid? (social norms, etiquette) Do you also use Weibo, and what for? Do you use QQ, and what for? Douyin [TikTok], and what for? (different use of social media platforms, different audiences) WeChat groups (constant connectivity – extended to probe on what is considered private)

Do you use Weixin for work? With whom (boss, colleagues, clients)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of Weixin for work (trust, cohesion, psychological detachment from work)? What kind of Weixin posts would you typically not show to your boss? How quickly do you respond to WeChat messages related to work? What about notifications in the evening, weekend? And notifications during family holidays? Why do you respond that quickly (or: not that quickly)? To what extent do you expect your work colleagues to respond quickly on Weixin? Do you use Weixin with your friends and family? Who in the family? How many Weixin groups do you have for the family (different content for different family members)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of Weixin for family and personal life (trust, cohesion, interruptions at work)? What kind of Weixin posts would you typically not show to your family? How fast do you respond to WeChat messages from your friends and family? Do they expect you to respond so quickly (or: do they agree with this delay)? Electronic payments and digital footprint (privacy)

For what type of purchases do you use WeChat Pay? What are the advantages and disadvantages of WeChat Pay? Do you have a financial credit score? Do you know how it is computed? How do you feel about that score? Do you have other credit scores, such as in your city or neighborhood? Do you know how they are computed? How do you feel about these scores? Some people say privacy is a notion of the past, in Western countries as well. What do you think? What does the work privacy mean to you?

280  Appendix: Methods

What are the advantages and disadvantages of control (through online traces)? Do you buy many things online? What do you think of Taobao/JinDong’s/ mentioned website or app’s recommendations? Do you sometimes think of the traces you leave online when you use WeChat or other online systems? (Is it a trade-off, then, between convenience and security?) (These companies know what you buy/Then Taobao/JinDong know what you buy.) (When you use WeChat to share the bill at a restaurant, WeChat knows with whom you shared the meal.) (Weibo has a real name policy.) Are there things that you would not buy online? (Do you sometimes pay in cash?) (In the West, some people refuse to use Apple Pay). What do you consider as private? To pay, do you prefer Weixin or Zhifubao [Alipay]? Do you check your record of transactions in these apps? Have you checked you credit lately? What can people do to keep a good financial credit score? Blacklists and social credit scores (privacy, surveillance)

What do you think of blacklists? (In the train or one the plane, you can hear announcements about the social credit system, and people can be blacklisted. Is this a good way to improve people, do you think?) I have heard some credit scores are not just financial; they also include some behaviours, have you heard that too? (What impacts the score, besides money and driving?) For instance, I  heard that if you cross the street at the red light, there are cameras, and your picture shows up on the street? (Might it hurt people’s self-esteem?) (This is embarrassing for people, isn’t it?) Some say it includes behaviours such as drinking alcohol/playing video games/using a VPN/watching pornography? (Some journalists report that when someone has a low social credit system, they can’t send their children to private schools.) I heard that if you do good things, such as volunteering, your score could go up? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the social credit system, in your view? What may the social credit system change for people? (Do you think people change their behaviours because of what is recorded online and the social credit scores?) (How would you feel if the system as I have described it was implemented?) (Could someone get on the blacklist if they criticised the government?) (Some people told me that they saw WeChat posts disappear; have you experienced this?) (Do you think you could do something, one day,

Appendix: Methods  281

unintentionally, that would be punished?) (Do you know all the rules?) (Do you always know exactly what is safe?) Do you know if you have a social credit score? Cameras (privacy)

What do you think about cameras in the streets? (In the West, some people dislike cameras). (Personally, I don’t like strangers watching me.) (Regarding cameras, what’s your preference in the trade-off between safety and privacy?) (Some participants told me they view the government as a parent, or a grand-parent. What do you think of this idea?) What do you think of cameras in schools that try to recognise students’ emotions? (I saw a video clip on a school using AI to recognise the students’ emotions and focus. Is this a good thing to do, do you think?) What do you think of cameras at work that try to recognise people’ emotions? Conclusion

Is there anything else pertaining to technology in China that I have not asked about and you would like to mention? Finally, I have some demographic questions to ask or confirm with you:

• Age: • Household composition (marital status, children): • Education level: Thank you for your answers! Interpreters’ training

The interpreters in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu were doctoral students who were proficient in English but not all familiar with qualitative interviewing. I introduced them to the research project and provided interviewing training before we began, to make sure they would let the participants find their own words, tolerate silence, and translate without adding their thoughts or subtracting what they may have considered irrelevant. I provided feedback to them after each of the first interviews, to build their skills and our ability to swiftly guide the flow of the interview. I also learned a lot from these interpreters, as we spent long taxi and subway rides discussing what had happened in the interviews, as well as their own experiences and reactions to my questions. They confided several thoughts off the record that helped me to analyse the data, and the Beijing interpreter even translated a sentence the participant had asked him to censor. Tables A.2 and A.3 present a breakdown of the interviews in terms of language, formality, and duration.

282

Appendix: Methods

TABLE A.2 Language in which the interviews were conducted

With interpreter Without interpreter Total

Mandarin

English

French

Total

26 0 26

7 22 29

0 3 3

33 25 58

TABLE A.3 Formality and duration of the interviews

Formality

Formal research interview (with interview guide) Informal interview Informal interview with foreign participant living in China Total

Number of interviews

Duration Average

Shortest

Longest

44

1 hour and 24 minutes 1 hour and 11 minutes 1 hour and 20 minutes

45 minutes

3 hours

35 minutes

2 hours

1 hour

1 hour and 40 minutes

35 minutes

3 hours

11 3 58

1 hour and 21 minutes

Diary of observation data

When I started planning to collect data in China, I made the perhaps unorthodox decision to begin with an observational trip on a segment of the silk roads from Xi’an to Kashgar. Xi’an is roughly in the centre of the country and is the eastern departure point of the silk roads, while Kashgar is one of the westernmost cities of China, near the border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. I travelled alone with a backpacker budget, mostly by high-speed train and buses, across the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, and Xinjiang. Then I flew over the Taklamakan desert to Chengdu in Sichuan Province, where I started the research interviews, before travelling some more in Sichuan to see the Leshan Giant Buddha and the sacred Mount Emei (Emeishan). On my travels towards Kashgar I often found myself the only Westerner on the bus or train, in local low-key hotels and restaurants, and on the streets. September was not the high tourist season, as school had started in China and other countries in the northern hemisphere. Many people approached me. The first two questions were always the same: ‘Ni shi na guoren?’ (What country are you from?) or a variant, ‘Ni shi meiguo ren ma?’ (Are you American?), and ‘Ni shi yige ren ma?’ (Are you alone?). Only the order of the two

Appendix: Methods  283

questions changed. When I answered I was French, they gave me thumbs up and commented ‘Fa guo ren hen hao’ (French is very good). It was important for them to place me in terms of my national identity, and once they had, they asked about my age or whether I was married and had children, what my name was, or why I had come here. During these travels, as during my stays at the universities to conduct the research interviews, I wrote a diary of observations, thoughts, and questions. Overall, I came home with four densely covered notebooks. These observations, as well as the informal conversations with the people who approached me, were very useful during the interviews and the data analysis stage. Indeed, a polycontextual analytical lens requires gaining contextual knowledge of a culture and environment and training oneself to notice not only the obvious, the foreground of the data collection, and what is verbally expressed.3 For instance, I  measured how strongly people identified with China and how much I was being perceived as a foreigner, thanks to these notes. I noticed the omnipresence of the word ‘Zhongguo’  – the Middle Kingdom, that is, China, in the diary and the interview verbatims. When I had bought some of the famous grapes of the Western provinces, I had not just bought putao (grapes), I  had bought Zhongguo putao, and had written it as such in my diary. A great many things I had seen, visited, or bought were likewise preceded with the word Zhongguo. I saw this as well in the pictures I had taken. Another word that came up frequently in the diary was ‘waiguoren’. Wai means outside, guo means country and ren means person, so a waiguoren is a person from outside the country, an outsider. I had picked up this word a lot in the conversations and on notices in train stations, sites, hotels, and on TV. Little by little, I realised how polarised the perceptions of Zhongguoren versus waiguoren seemed to be. In the research interviews, a few participants discussed foreign countries in an isolated manner; for instance, they mentioned Japan, Switzerland, and Germany when discussing people who follow rules and abide laws. But in my travels, I rarely heard foreign countries mentioned in isolation: it was either foreigners or Westerners, without further differentiation. These observations helped with the analysis presented in Chapter 4, and this is the reason why I have accompanied the data analysis with accounts of travel observations. Research data analysis First-order coding

During the interviews, I wrote as much as I could of the participants’ answers on a notebook where I also noted their body language and non-verbal communication, such as silences and hesitations. I  quickly improvised simple codes to mark self-censorship (*) and orthodoxy (**) in the margins of the

284  Appendix: Methods

page when the participants’ answers were manifestly constrained. I  also inserted question marks in the margins when I needed to double check the meaning of an answer with the interpreter, or to investigate a word or expression that came back frequently. While in China, I  wrote three sets of memos: interview, code, and city memos. For the interview memos, I first wrote one or two pages with selected excerpts right after the interviews, while they were still very fresh in my mind. I had planned to space out the interviews to maximum two per day so that I would have time to conduct a first analysis right after and adjust the interview guide to clarify questions, have more engaging follow-ups, and enrich it with emerging themes. In Beijing where the distances are longer, I sometimes had three interviews at the same site in a day; in that case I  wrote quick thoughts in the evening and went back to the longer memo as fast as I could, often the next day. Then I  wrote structured transcripts of each interview: I  did not fully transcribed verbatim because this would have required the continuous presence of the interpreter and we would not have had time to perform this lengthy task while I was at their university. Instead, I listened to the recording while also checking my notebook and wrote a transcript of the participants’ answers (when in English) and translated answers (when in Mandarin) in which I  selected the most significant excerpts. I  hand-coded the excerpts in broad initial codes which qualitative scholars call first-order codes (examples are use of WeChat, opinion about cameras) and organised the excerpts not in the order in which the participant has expressed them (as in a classic verbatim transcription) but by codes. The codes, thus, were the headers of each paragraph in which I consigned the excerpts as well as indications on body language, non-verbal communications, self-censorship, and orthodoxy. The second type of memos were code memos: after the first four or five interviews in Chengdu, I wrote memos on each recurrent code, to track similarities and differences across the interviews as well as my thoughts on these codes and the patterns I was beginning to identify. The third type of memo were city memos: as I  conducted interviews in batches in Chengdu, Shanghai, and Beijing, I wrote overall memos that combined the interviews memos, the codes memos, and the diary of daily observations in that city. The ethics committee at my university had warned me that scholars’ computers may be checked as they leave China, which may compromise the participants’ anonymity and lead to loss of research data. To mitigate these risks, I  uploaded all written and voice memos to the OneDrive folder registered with my university, since Microsoft tools were accessible from China, unlike Google tools. I  asked a family member to download the data on another computer at my home and then erased them from my travel iPad and from OneDrive.

Appendix: Methods  285

Second-order coding

Once I  came back home, I  printed out the three sets of memos. I  worked on the floor of a large room, spreading out seven to eight interviews at a time. I  recoded the interview memos by writing more abstract codes, that is, second-order codes, in the margins, and highlighted selected excerpts with colour codes (e.g. yellow for technology; pink for government). On a whiteboard, I wrote the first-order codes that were the headers of the initial interview memos and added the second-order codes. When the whiteboard was full, I  updated the corresponding code memo to better organise firstorder and second-order codes, and merge or subdivide codes. The initial set of second-order codes were Rules, Punishment, Dreams, Hopes, Fears, Foils, Privacy, Judgement, Government, Technology, Awareness, Objections, Resistance, Opacity, Defence Mechanisms, Self-censorship, and Propaganda. After having recoded seven to eight interviews and updated all the codes memos, I  studied the codes memo anew, as well as the city memos, and drafted an overall model connecting them roughly, using PowerPoint. This initial model already identified some of the fears, foils, hopes, dreams, and defence mechanisms I discuss in this book; it constitutes the backbone of the book, where I  identify three perceived moral shortcomings, two pillars of hope seen as saving China from these shortcomings, and the ways in which surveillance weighs on citizens. Then I  repeated the steps on another set of seven to eight interviews, updating the original code memos without looking up the ones I had updated on the first set. It was important, in my view, to treat different batches of interviews separately so as not to be influenced by the coding of the first batch while coding the subsequent ones. Therefore, I had several coexisting versions of codes memos. When all the interview memos were re-coded with second-order codes and all code memos were updated, I went back to the city memos to create a merged version of the code memos. I spent several days reorganising the codes and trying out multiple versions of the overarching model in PowerPoint. At this stage, I went back to the travel diary and organised my notes into an overall observations’ memo structured by an independent set of codes. This enabled me to identify important themes, such as the value of care and ambivalence towards rules, that came to enrich and nuance the overall code structure, as well as the rendering of the analysis in this book. At this stage, the set of second-order codes was rationalised to Rules and Punishment, Dreams and Foils, Privacy, Government, Technology, Awareness and Objections, Defence Mechanisms, Self-censorship, and Orthodoxy. Once the initial set of first- and second-order codes was stabilised, I paused the data analysis for several months and went back to the literature. I read extensively on contemporary China, including aspects that I had not planned

286  Appendix: Methods

to examine beforehand (for instance, the importance of ‘moral quality’ and nationalism), to be able to put the codes that had emerged from the data in context. I was thus able to work on the themes of fears, foils, and dreams in a more precise and informed way and went back to the code structure and excerpts to adjust and reorganise them. I then created an arborescence of codes in the software NVivo and entered the interview demographics and excerpts. I  iterated between NVivo and Word, exporting codes into Word (one document per second-order code) to revise them more easily before adjusting the code arborescence in NVivo. The software did not yield insights into the codes themselves, or the overarching model that informed the structure and core ideas of this book; however, it did provide illustrations that confirmed the analysis, such as the word clouds, and useful information on the salience of the different codes and the similarities and differences between socio-demographic groups. Notes 1 Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Jerry A. Jacobs, and Nancy P. Rothbard, “Technology, Work and Family: Digital Cultural Capital and Boundary Management,” Annual Review of Sociology 45 (2019). 2 Miles B. Miles and A. Michael Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis  – An Expanded Sourcebook, vol. 2 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994); Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998); Michael G. Pratt, “Fitting Oval Pegs into Round Holes, “Tensions in Evaluating and Publishing Qualitative Research in Top-Tier North American Journals,” Organizational Research Methods 11, no. 3 (2008); Michael G. Pratt, “For the Lack of a Boilerplate: Tips on Writing up (and Reviewing) Qualitative Research,” Academy of Management Journal 52, no. 5 (2009); Dennis A. Gioia, Kevin G. Corley, and Aimee L. Hamilton, “Seeking Qualitative Rigor in Inductive Research: Notes on the Gioia Methodology,” Organizational Research Methods 16, no. 1 (2013); Sarah J. Tracy, “Qualitative Quality: Eight ‘Big-Tent’ Criteria for Excellent Qualitative Research,” Qualitative Inquiry 16, no. 10 (2010). 3 Debra L. Shapiro, Mary Ann Von Glinow, and Zhixing Xiao, “Toward Polycontextually Sensitive Research Methods,” Management  & Organization Review 3, no. 1 (2007).

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INDEX

5G, information age 209 9/11 attacks 22 1984 (Orwell) 197, 225 2014 – 2020 Chinese government plan 2, 53 acceptance: generalised surveillance 245; judgement 64; levels 65; opposition 242; punishments 61, 64, 243; restrictions 133, 143; risk acceptance 258; rules 65, 69; surveillance 29, 141 access, restrictions 141, 146, 214, 221 actions, avoidance 77 activities, tracking (absence) 195 adult content, information posting (impossibility) 222 affect 3, 244 agent provocateur, perspective 5 algorithmic decision-making errors 27 algorithmic profiling 25 algorithmic recommendation service providers 269 algorithmic scoring 232 algorithmic sorting 20; status 50 – 3 algorithms 272; browser, relationship 27; emotion recognition 244; impact 24; invisibility 23; police use 231; scoring 2; sophistication, increase 24; transparency/predictability 69; usage 236

Alibaba (Taobao): avoidance 197; customers 215; data sale 214; information 215; knowledge 204; purchases 219, 228; recommendations, advantages/disadvantages 158; recommendations, perceptions 137, 216 – 17; safety 190; shopping pattern knowledge 193; trust, extent 207; usage 107 Alipay (Zhifubao, Zhifu): application 173; by-products 219; convenience 168; credit, computation 244; credit, repayment 170; credit systems 47; data 192; data collection 205; discussion 252; facial recognition usage 145; importance 207; one-click access 154; problems, potential 170; savings, placement (caution/concern) 170; scandal, avoidance 145; spending knowledge 210; trust 259 Amazon, passport information (avoidance) 197 Americans, Chinese dislike 93 Analects (Confucius) 18 anger 10, 147, 213 – 14, 242; citizen 271; expression/display 90, 110; reaction 235 anguishing narratives, redeeming narratives (contrast) 8

304 Index

Animal Farm (Orwell) 211 anticipatory obedience 29, 108, 227, 246 anti-government content, information posting (impossibility) 222 apathy, privacy apathy 29 – 30, 107, 208 Apple Pay, usage (refusal) 208 applications (apps): advantages/ disadvantages 161; usage 159, 228 artificial intelligence (AI) 25, 216; advances 2; AI-enabled emotion recognition 234; impact 209; rules enforcement 80; school usage 182; usage 52; usefulness 160 attacks: 9/11 22; avoidance 84; fear 91 – 2; human rights 89, 133; Muslim 92; terrorist 261 awareness 213 – 26; absence 205; credit systems (deficit) 173; law (falu yishi) 73; privacy (growth) 30 – 1; privacy, display 108 background check (zhengshen) 185; social credit system, relationship 186; usage 200 – 1; Tibet 225 bad actions: absence 200; avoidance 77; reminder, cameras (usage) 199 bad history, perception 91 bad intentions, worry (ignoring) 134 – 5 bad voices 118 Baidu: customers 215; data protection 229; defection 220 – 1, 224; transfer 198; usage 157 Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent (BAT), middle manager income 169 Baidu Wangpan (cloud) 221 Baihang credit, establishment 47 bank: loans, repayment 171; passwords, privacy 114; trust 259 banknotes, serial numbers (usage) 219 Barker, James 272 behaviours: avoidance 206; cameras, relationship 78, 115; change, technology (impact) 209; clarification, VPN usage (impact) 227; dichotomic treatment 230; hiding, impossibility 108; judgement 250; leading, platform (usage) 260; monitoring 250; online postings, effects 77; prohibition/punishment 199;

recording 163; tracking, concern (absence) 195 Beijing, research interviews 5 Bernal, Paul 30 Bērziņa-Čerenkova, Una Aleksandra 147, 194 Big Data 196, 210, 215; concept 217; creation 214; profiling 24 – 5; societal attention 165 “big potatoes,” targeting 194 – 5 Billeter, Jean-François 6, 68, 88, 105, 130, 137, 143, 169, 194 biometric data 268 blacklists (blacklisting) (hei mingdan): 2014 – 2020 Chinese government plan 2, 53; approval 65; concern, absence of 9, 68; corruption 74; criminals, bad things 194 – 8; education 231; law enforcement 48, 161; responsibility 67; rules 74; safety 161; VPN 216; confusion 167; Credit China 47; fragmentation 50; interviewing 65, 240, 270 – 2; legalist–legist lever 45; model cities 46; Rongcheng 49; Taishan 50; morality, inner 237; National Development and Reform Commission 53; opacity 68 – 9, 71, 81; pandemic retooling 52 – 3; political 187; post-hoc 51; self-censorship 246; shaming, internet 68; street cameras 61; social credit system joint conference, sanctions 49; ban 50, 198; companies, blacklisted 30; success stories 50, 80; Supreme Peoples Court 48; TikTok 50 Black Mirror, following 184 – 5; Nosedive episode 184 – 5 blinders, wearing 10, 170, 179, 203 – 7 Blumenstock, Joshua 26 body language 250, 254, 262, 283; agitation 248; change 249; indication 284 boyd, danah 19 branding 259 bribes, usage 74 Brown, Kerry 147, 194, 258 bullying 148, 261 burden: choices (easing) 159; emotional 267; mental, creation 120 businesses (restrictions), social credit system (usage) 74

Index  305

Cabestan, Jean-Pierre 80, 88, 127, 128, 143, 147, 169, 203, 246 cameras: attitudes, differences 128 – 9; behaviours, relationship 78, 115; contributions 166; control, acceptance 141; discomfort 218; dislike 80; emotion-recognition cameras, usage 164; government investment, reasons 139; ignoring 72, 75 – 6; impolite behaviours (change), cameras (usage) 165; minimising 180 – 2; monitoring 189; necessity, perception 109; perceptions, exclusion 189; placement, contrast 242; positive impact 99 – 100; privacy 281; public safety, civilisation (connection) 115 – 16; purpose 199; questions 129; reaction, absence 205; recording tool 181; rules enforcement 80; usage, perspective 67, 74, 81, 110, 202, 229 – 30; usefulness 129, 145, 163, 181 Canada: education/safety 97; information, source 243; interviews 245; privacy 210; rules, obey 72, 81 capitalism (mitigation), state-owned enterprises (impact) 128 Cappello, Lawrence 26 care: control, continuum (surveillance) 26 – 8; surveillance, equivalence 135 – 49; value 136 – 7 cash: avoidance 153; monitoring 219 Cassiano, Marcella 41 casual private interactions, recording (problems) 26 categorising 25 censorship 232 Central Bank of China, economic record 201 centralised political system, presence 132 chaos 92, 144, 272; bearing 98; countering 10, 130; protection 79, 136, 143; worries 144 chats, content (knowledge) 228 Cheng, Anne 166 Chengdu: research interviews 5; travels 282 childhood imaginaries 137 children: education, desire 96; emotions (recognition), cameras (usage)

234 – 5; monitoring, comparison 235; monitoring, technology usage (nonnecessity) 232 – 3; parental observation 237; punishment protection 237; relaxation, necessity 233 chilling effects 29 – 30 China (Zhongguo): algorithmic sorting, status 50 – 3; Belt and Road 3; CCTV 2; chaos 142 – 6; ChinAI, newsletter 7; dream 7; contradictions 71; control, necessity 131 – 3; convenient ‘other’ 6; country, change (desire) 97; country, love 146 – 7; country, persuasion 148; credit system, establishment 161; data centralisation, status 50 – 3; data-driven governance 100; development phase 133; digital surveillance 1 – 4; digital surveillance, intra-individual tensions 8; economy (reconstruction), technology (usage) 169; face, centrality 112 – 13; fieldwork, conducting (foreigner perspective) 4 – 5; government, criticism 225; government, social class support 97; government, support (undermining) 98; ‘great narrative’ 6; growth 96; history, complexity 67; history, government (impact) 131; human rights, absence 143; innovations 2; instrumentalisation 6; Middle Kingdom 130 – 5; misunderstanding 86; monitoring 89; ‘moral quality’ 7; national face, saving 85 – 100; place in the world 7, 93 – 5; privacy, meaning 17 – 18; privacy, awareness/advocacy/ literacy (growth) 30 – 1; privacy, priority (absence) 97, 166; privacy, scope 109 – 16; reforms, positive impact 128; rule breaking, problem 10, 65; safety 86; secrecy 10; social credit systems approval 31; society, rules/punishment (rhetoric) 63 – 72; surveillance, analysis 40; surveillance imaginaries 271; surveillance paradox 8; technology, direction

306 Index

255; techno-orientalism 6; victimisation narrative 89; wealth (distribution), technology (usage) 169; ‘the West’ 6, 105; word cloud 93; world status, technology (usage) 166 – 9; Zhongguo 283 China Central Television (CCTV): acceptance 81, classroom usage 191; closed-circuit television cameras, ratio 2; concern, absence 99; observation 188; omnipresence 207, 218; privacy 209; protection 145; safety, equivalence 80, 163 China Mobile: service 228; tracking data 52 China Telecom 201; tracking data 52 China Unicom, tracking data 52 Chinese behaviours, improvement 73 Chinese citizens, digital surveillance approval 31 – 2 Chinese Dream 7, 80 – 1, 85, 92, 164, 168 Chinese imaginary, robots (perception) 159 – 60 Chinese people: moral quality, criticism 72 – 3; stereotypes, problem 193 Chinese Personal Information Protection Law 28 Chinese scholarship, privacy 17 – 18 Chinese social media, monitoring 141 – 2 Chinese studies 3; implications 10, 267 – 71; readings 7 Chinese technology, comparison 167 Chinese tourists, cultured behaviours 94 choices, burden (easing) 159 citizens: anger 271; information, centralisation 46; sorting 44 – 5 citizens, surveillance: equality breach 235 – 6; weight 8 civic virtue, instilling 2 Civil Code (2002), privacy definition (adoption) 18 civilisation (wenming): absence 174; complex 88; continuation, propaganda theme 131; dream, narrative 79; national humiliations (relationship) 84; dream, word cloud 93; public safety, connection 99 – 100; shaming, tool 77 – 80; vector 164 – 6

Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhaijing) 130 classroom, CCTV usage 191 cloud, usage 228 – 9 cognitive coping 193 collectivistic cultures, privacy (concerns) 105 commercial credit scores, perspective 69 commercial social credit systems 47 commercial surveillance 23 – 4 Communist Party of China (CPC): country, love 146 – 7; discussion 128 – 9, 225 – 6; information, access 209; leadership 258; leadership, impact 226; member 258; membership, total 261; negative influence, behaviours (relationship) 226; offices 206; rhetoric 141; rule 28; trust 129 companies: government monitoring, responsibility 144, 146; government regulation, increase (perception) 145; private companies, data abuse (prevention) 145; profit-seeking motive 75; records knowledge 183 – 4; register 50; trust 156 compliance: display, need 116 – 18; inducing 77 – 8 confidence, fear (contrast) 115 confinement, compliance (enforcement) 270 Confucian idea 43; integrity 79; philosophy 17 Confucian teachings 137 Confucian virtues 81 Confucius 68 content, hiding 111 – 18 contentment, expression 95 context: COVID-19 pandemic 31, 52, 90; data analysis 285; electronic footprint 104; indigenization 147; interview, knowledge 283; national 271 – 3; norms, appropriateness 21; privacy 17 – 19; privacy, attitudes 106, relationships 118; socio-economic 98; sociomateriality 40; state surveillance 25; surveillance, acceptance 240; Western liberal democracies vs. China 1 – 6; see also polycontextualisation

Index  307

‘Contribution of Development to the Enjoyment of All Human Rights, The’ (UN) 96 convenience: danger, contrast 156; importance 155; privacy, contrast 155 – 7; security, trade-off 215; technology, impact 168 cookies, control (absence) 156 core socialist value 62 corporations: data collection 24 – 5, 30; data streams 23; non-productive labour capture 24; personal data, leakage 27; power, imbalance 27 – 8; surveillance technologies, leverage 26; technology instrumentalisation 40; threat, identification (absence) 9; violations, worry 28 – 9 corruption: solution, rules (usage) 74; suspiciousness 195 COVID-19 pandemic: acceleration/ function creep 52 – 3; containment 100; context 31, 90; digital surveillance acceleration 268; digital surveillance evolution 9, 40; impact 2, 270 – 1; lockdowns 8, 26, 52 – 3, 271; spread, control 52 credit: computation 243; scope, expansion 167; score, impacts 170 – 1; system, awareness 187; system, awareness (deficit) 173 credit card information, sharing 190 Credit China, blacklists 47 Creemers, Rogier 2, 42, 45, 52, 269 crime: decrease, cameras (impact) 99; prevention 242; protection 243; punishment 149 criminal activity, impact 202 criminal behaviours, display 198 criminals: blacklist, usage 198 – 203; credit score, low level 201; record 201; tracking 243 critical thinking, absence 142 Cultural Revolution 253 – 4; aftermath 42; bad history, perception 91; deportation 92, 261; family suffering 97; Great Cultural Revolution 97, 149, 168, 222 culture, disappointment 85 customer data, analysis 214 cybernetics 43 Cyber Security Law (2017) 30

daily activities, capture 108 daily life: individual surveillance, opinion 188; technology, usage 192 daily life, focus 203 – 5 dang’an (personal archives system) 31, 40 – 1, 50, 185, 254 data: centralisation 161; centralisation, status 50 – 3; Chinese politicians, scientific approach 146; collection/illegal use 144; collection, public opinion/ regulations (evolution) 268 – 9; creation 186; footprint 188, 210 – 11; government access, acceptance 183; observation data, diary 282 – 3; personal data, app collection 159; private company use, control 146; public knowledge 106; research data analysis 283 – 6; security, government proactivity 144; statistics, usefulness 165; unsolicited commercial use 214 – 17; value, understanding (absence) 110; volunteering 165 – 6 datafication 25, 28 Data Justice Lab, case studies 25 dataveillance 22 debtors, blacklists 172 dematerialised life, ease 153 – 4 democracy 205; defining 146 – 9; India (presence) 146; readiness, absence 88; redefining 6, 147; transposition 147; undermining 20; Western, alternative 100 demonstration, permission (asking) 257 Deng, Xiaoping 18, 62 denial 213; expression 180 – 9; strength 182 – 3; tactic 224 descendants, presence (preference) 166 Didi, usage 197, 228; tracing 156 digital fingerprints 108 digital footprint (privacy) 279 – 80 digital hukou, report 41 digital inequality, increase 27 digital protection, offering 8 digital surveillance 1 – 4; acceleration, COVID-19 (impact) 270 – 1; analytical lens/methods 3 – 5; Chinese citizen approval 31 – 2; concerns 227; core arguments 7 – 8; imaginaries

308 Index

8; intra-individual tensions 8; personal exposure, concerns 268 digital technology, usage 152 – 3 Ding, Jeff 7, 161 Dingding (Alibaba) 221 discipline: cameras, usage 181; problems 81; violation, perspective 66 discomfort, psychological 8 disorder, protection 79 dissociation, mental tactics 179, 180 dissuasion, mechanism 78 dreams 92 – 100 driving score, points (loss) 99 – 100 dynasties, cycles 131 e-commerce: companies, purchase knowledge 208; governance/ regulation 209 – 10; platforms 19; websites, algorithmic recommendations 238 economic development 4, 43; appreciation 128; comparisons 130; connection 80, 95 – 8; dream 92; evocation 89; importance 73; increase 134; moral progress, connection 98; perception 9, 85, 92, 100; rapidity 261; regulation, absence 143; thanks, expression 94 economic gains/rules, attention 72 economic growth, prioritization 133 economic record 201 economy: development 244; improvement, technology (impact) 166; questions, avoidance 95 education: absence, claim 254 – 6; desire 96; impact 237; improvement 97; morality, contrast 80; opportunities 76; process 257; punishment 236 – 7; red flag education 134; usage 250 efficiency 160; privacy, balance 201; questioning 213; reduction 132; social efficiency, perspective 78; theme 154 – 5 elders: news/events, hiding 120; obeying, importance 134 electronic payments 7, 167, 180; making 1; posts 188; privacy 279 – 80; usage 104, 114, 155 embarrassing news, hiding 120

embarrassment 65, 261; expression 258 – 9; signs 255; types 91 – 2; usage 78 emotional burden 267 emotional sentences, usage 118 emotions 233; AI-enabled emotion recognition 234; hiding 241; identification, police robots (usage) 163; recognition 164; recognition algorithms 244 employees: emotion recognition, cameras (usage) 241; equality 236; laziness (counteracting), surveillance (usage) 74; screenshots 234; self-motivation 237 epistemic positioning 5 – 7 equality: breach 229, 235 – 6; digital inequality, increase 27 equilibrium, instability (shift) 267 – 71 European imaginaries 159 evil side, hiding 121 exposure: face, exposure 66; increase 73, 108; limiting 10; non-compliant acts 50; personal, concerns 268; personal, coping 179; personal, denial 198; personal, dissociation 211; personal, ignoring 188; personal, minimisation 8, 213; privacy, concern 220 – 1; shameful information/feelings, control 111; surveillance 191, 227 – 9 face: analysis 189; balance, equivalence 114; privacy, conflation 232 – 3; protection 112 – 13; public safety, importance comparison 189; saving, privacy (relationship) 111 – 14; social face, privacy (equivalence) 113 Facebook: access 222; barrier 133; convenience/danger 156; impressions, management 116; political posts 170; privacy, risks 109; scandals 214; usage, desire 143 facial expressions 243 facial recognition 2, 189, 207; Alipay usage 145; approval 31; cameras 1, 22, 46; decision-making errors 27; discomfort 218; documentary 243; law enforcement usage 24;

Index  309

live facial recognition, usage 27; questions 129; research/ articles 71; rules enforcement 80; systems, privacy violations 268; technology, opposition 31; technology, security (association) 160; technology, usage 31, 44; usage 244 – 5; usage, approval 31 fake name, usage 229 false image, creation 116 Falun Gong 169, 258 families: cameras, contributions 166; data, consequences (assessments) 205; freedom 188; relationships (enhancement), WeChat (usage) 116 fantasy, fabrication (belief) 185 fatalism 10, 179, 207 – 11 fear 10, 213 – 14, 220, 242; absence 200; confidence, contrast 115; elicitation 222; expression/ feeling 244, 259; invasion/attack fear 91 – 2; judgement/social judgement, fear 77, 112, 113; types 91 – 2 feelings 213; awareness 7; concealment 104, 120; exposure, control 111; expression 235, 242 – 3; labelling 208; negative, privacy 114; powerlessness 210; sharing 117, 120 – 3; unpleasant 214 – 26, 267 filial piety 81 financial activities 187 financial score (expansion), social credit system (impact) 172 fines, amounts 77 first-order coding 283 – 4 forbidden videos/comments, avoidance 108 foreigners (waiguoren): attraction/ repulsion 85; government constraints 140; interaction, eagerness 5; invasion themes 85; Mandarin, speaking 94; surveillance exposure 191; Western foreigners, appreciation/ resentment 89 – 91, 283 foreign humiliations 91 – 2 foreign news (access), VPN (usage) 202 foreign social media, access/usage 207, 229 foreign websites, access 64 foreign White people, appreciation 90

Foucault, Michel 22, 190 fragmentation, social credit system tension 50 – 1 France: interviews 249; political system 131; recognition 94; unequal treaties 86 freedom (ziyou) 194, 238 – 40; allowance, social regulations (relationship) 133 – 4; Chinese preference 100; Eastern views, Western views (contrast) 134; loss, dislike 188; restrictions, reframing/acceptance 193; safety basis 193; value 134 free speech, guarantee 240 friends, freedom 188 frustration 10, 213 – 15, 222, 242; citizen frustration/anger 271 function creep, pandemic retooling 52 – 3 gamification 2 Gansu: travels 282; trip 5 Gaode maps, usage 204, 215 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), EU creation 28 generalised surveillance 10, 143, 213, 240 – 2; acceptance 245; objections 229 – 42 Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology 24 Germany: Aufarbeitung 223; East Germany 223; privacy 28 – 31; real-name registration (comparison) 192, rules, follow 75, 283; surveillance attitudes 129; unequal treaties 86 global inequalities 128 globally centralised government, presentation 128 glory: past glory, memory 88; reviving 10, 84, 166 Golden Shield 43 – 5; usage 51 good person: actions/behavior 64, 121; narrative 199 – 200; watching 110; see also ‘I am a good person’ Google 1, 29, 145, 196, 204, 215, 217, 224 – 5, 227, 242, 284 Google Maps, usage 217 – 18 governance, Confucian view 79 government: book criticism, sale (impossibility) 222; control, SCS (impact) 227; criticism

310 Index

225; criticism, blacklist presence 240; distrust, privacy concerns (relationship) 129; employment, candidate screening 185; grandparent, equivalence 138; harm 129; intervention, necessity 75; monitoring 188; moral roles, consolidation 270; narratives 270; narratives, socio-demographics 173 – 4; parental figure 137 – 42; parental protection, equivalence 135 – 49; plans, implementation 210; proactive monitoring 157; protection, acceptance 140; protection/order, equivalence 127; protection, technology-mediated embodiments 159 – 60; records 262; resistance, discussion 149; strength, order (equivalence) 142 – 6; trust 135, 146; trust-breaking label 48; word cloud 138 ‘government as a protector’ narrative 153 Great Cultural Revolution 149, 222; cause 168; family suffering, reparations 97 Great Leap Forward, family suffering (reparations) 97 greed, worries 144 grid management: bottom-up grid management 9, 40, 52, 53; usage 43 – 5 Groitl, Gerlinde 147 gun control, absence 163 hacker, records collection 215 happiness, sharing 117 Health Code, downloading 270 ‘Hidden Dangers of Facial Recognition Technology, The’ (Lao Dongyan) 268 high-quality citizenry, cultivation 73 high-speed trains, convenience 168 Hikvision, usage 2 history: knowledge, absence 223; remembering, importance 91; usefulness 96 home address, privacy 114 ‘Honest Shanghai’ application 46 Hong Kong: demonstration/riots 202; economy, comparison 94; news, blocking 248; news, government

disapproval 141; protestors, problems (perception) 142; protests 227 housing prices, increase 128 Hu, Yong 196 Huawei, US emergency ban 222 hukou (household register) 40 – 1; digital hukou, report 41 human moral quality, improvement 78 human nature 207 human rights 236, 256; absence 143; attacks 89, 133; concerns, increase 96; criticism 88 – 9; emotions, relationship 235; examination 6; importance 133; language, PIPL co-optation 269; redefining 6; term, usage 132 – 3; Western protests 90 Human Rights Watch 48 humans, intelligence 160 humiliations: avoidance 84; evocations 9; foreign 91 – 2; memory, activation 88; national 82, 84, 100, 272; national, narrative 85 – 9, 100; national, shame 84; offsetting 174; past 88, 94, 153 hybrid social media strategies 103 “I am a good person” 10, 179, 198 – 203, 211 “I am a small potato” 10, 179, 194 – 8, 211 “I can’t do anything about it” 208 – 10 identification (ID): card, usage 242; information 218, 219; privacy, absence 114 ideology, protection/elites 95 – 8 ignoring 187 – 9 “I just accept it” 210 – 11 illegality: avoidance, example 67; perspective 66 – 7 imaginaries 104 – 11; childhood 137; Chinese surveillance 271; digital surveillance 8; European 160; moral narratives, cohesiveness 272; nationalist 91; North American 160; participant 152; participant, shaping 267; polycontextual surveillance 267; privacy 103 – 11; regime 91; strength, variation 273; surveillance 3, 6, 84, 100; surveillance, narratives (strength) 268; surveillance, situating 174

Index  311

impolite behaviours (change), cameras (usage) 165 India, democracy (presence) 146 individualised surveillance 213, 241, 245 individualistic cultures, privacy (worry) 105 individuals, focus 105 industrial revolution, China (noninvolvement) 168 information: access, restrictions 146; age, e-commerce (governance/ regulation) 209; algorithmic manipulations 20; control 225; copying 238; privacy, problem 221; regulation 239; systems architecture, advances 2 injustice, increase 236 inner moral compass, development 237 Instagram: impressions, management 116; usage 229 Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), usage 51 international moral recognition, longing 93 – 5 internet: development 220; power 78; records 215; websites, access restrictions 141 interpreters, training 281 interview: approach 247; excerpts, notes 63; formality/duration 282; guide 277 – 8; language, usage 282; research participants, recruitment 275 – 7 interviewer: Chinese, mistrust 5; foreign, trust 5; question 247; signalling 260 – 3 interviewing 247 – 54; learning curve 247 – 50 intrinsic morality, elevation 79 – 1 invasion, fear 91 – 2 invasive surveillance technology, acceptance 129 invasive technology, usage 144 IScan, usage 168 “it does not matter” 207 – 11 Japan: architecture 117; discipline rules, follow 62, 71, 283; good citizen cards 45; moral quality 72; Nanjing 85; Sino–Japanese Wars, humiliations 86 – 7, 90; workplace surveillance 194 jaywalkers, camera display 61

jaywalking: photo posting, effect 77, 79; record 198; warning 159 JinDong (JD) 106, 197 joint rewards and sanctions system 46 – 8 judgement: acceptance 64; dread 112; fear 112, 113; non-judgemental research 6 Key Opinion Leader (KOL): problems 118; real time shows, watching 158 Knight, Adam 52 knowledge: absence 173, 185; absence, claim 254 – 6; allusion 69; contextual, leverage/gain 4, 283; problems 30; surveillance imaginaries 271; technical 186; usage 164 Kostka, Genia 75, 209, 270 labelling 208; idea, rejection 229 – 30; warning 105 ‘lack of trust’ narrative 75 Lao Dongyan 268 lateral surveillance 22 Law of the Rights of the Person, The (Wang Limin/Yang Lixin) 18 laws: absence 200; awareness (falu yishi) 73; blacklist 48, 55; improvement, need 144; morality, fusion 43; reputation 140; teleological environment 26, 31 learned discourse, personal thoughts (tension) 132 legalist-legist lever 45 legalist-legist (fajia) tradition 43, 79 legislation: need 144; privacy legislation 28 lesson, learning 77 – 8 Liang, Fan 47 life: convenience 153 – 7; convenience, importance 155; dematerialised, ease 153 – 4; direct influence 256; facilitation, technology (usage) 153; recording, dislike 238 – 9; technology, facilitation 154 Li, Haili 270 Li, Yingyun 49 LinkedIn, connection 110 Liu, Cixin 159 living standards: improvement 96; improvement, government desire 98; priority 97

312 Index

love: affective word, impact 10, 152; applications 153; country 97, 135, 146 – 7, 252, 257; party 227; technology 157 – 60 ‘love of the country’ 88 Lupton, Deborah 26 Lyon, David 3, 22, 52, 103, 181, 271 machine learning, advances 2 Ma, Jack 49, 106 Mandarin (putongua): choice 94; learning 261; speaking 223 – 4 Mao Zedong 87; hero status, parent perception 149 market-based punishment 50 Marwick, Alice 19 material consumption, attention (excess) 74 McGregor, Douglas 75 media: monitoring power 223 – 4; task 257 medical care (access restriction), social credit system (impact) 236 Megvii, usage 2 mental burden, creation 121 Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) report 48, 51 Meta, personal data (leakage) 27 Middle Kingdom 130 – 5 middle managers, income 169 Mill, John Stuart 238 misbehavior: blacklisting process, gradualness 71; cameras, relationship 115 misgivings 213 mobility, enabling 153 modernity: conception 96; idea, association 62; technology, relationship 100, 161, 167 modernization, process 161 money: borrowing 206, 219; care 204; saving 154 – 5 monitoring 243; abuse 259; constraint 245; continuation 181; distrust 245; effect 77 moral dossier (daode dang’an) 31; see also dang’an moral education (suzhi jiaoyu) 62; discourse 73; shaming tool 77 – 80 moral function 78, 161 – 6 morality: education, contrast 80; highlighting 7; importance

272 – 3; improvement 92; increase 164, 271; inner 237; intrinsic 79 – 80, 237; judgement 112; law, fusion 43; presence 269; vector 81, 161 ‘Moral Models & Good Political Ideology’ (redlist, Tibet) 48 moral narratives, socio-demographics 122 – 3 moral progress, rules/punishment tools 72 – 80 moral quality (suzhi): absence 7, 9, 10, 61 – 2, 72, 81, 84, 115, 127, 268; appearance, trace 73; criticism 72 – 3; decrease, perception 72; development 237; discourses 100; enhancement 165; human moral quality, improvement 10, 78, 79, 174, 237, 250; importance 286; improvement 10, 79, 152, 174, 237, 250; increase, rules/monitoring (usage) 61 – 2; learning 72; need 199; problem 141 – 2, 161; rules, equivalence 72; trajectory 7 moral quality (suzhi) narrative 9, 73; absence 81; analysis 81 moral rules, following 80 moral shortcomings, narratives 103, 127 Mosaic (segmentation tool) 25 moulding behaviour, embarrassment (usage) 78 mouth/jaw movements, identification 249 municipal scoring 51 municipal social credit systems 46 – 7 Muslim attacks 91 myth-trauma complex 88 Nanjing events, commemoration 85 narratives: alternative 79; analysis 141; China and the West 9, 85, 105, 115, 226; core 7; disconnect 242 – 5; good person 199 – 200; ‘government as a protector’ 8, 137, 153, 174; government 270; great 6; ‘lack of trust’ 74; legitimacy 87; ‘moral quality’ 9, 73; moral quality, absence 81; moral quality, analysis 81; moral shortcomings 103, 127; national humiliations 85 – 9, 100; normalisation 189 – 92; othering

Index  313

91; patriotic 88; polycontextual 10; rules 63 – 8, 133 – 4, 199; rules, abundance 63 – 8; shame 84; social governance 74; social 87; socio-demographics 173 – 4; strength 268; technology 127, 173 – 4; technology as magic bullet 8, 174; trust 196; victimisation 89 national behaviour 242 national credit information-sharing platform, development 47 National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) 32, 47, 53; model city selection 46 national disaster day 85 national face, saving 85 – 100 national humiliations 82, 84, 100, 272; civilisation dream, relationship 84; narrative 85 – 9, 100; shame 84; systematic dissemination 87 National Internet Finance Association of China 47 nationalist imaginaries 91 nationalist party, communist party (civil war) 131 national security: discourse 243 – 4; discussion, caution 222; evocation 89; government proactivity 75, 144; involvement, absence 201; risk, presentation 52 National Security Agency (NSA): government 196; screen 29; track 25 national shame, avoidance 85 negative feelings, privacy 114 Never Forget National Humiliation (Zheng Wang) 86 news: influence 141; scanning, VPN (usage) 230; veracity/ credibility 222 non-compliant acts, exposure 50 non-verbal communication 283 – 4 normalisation: criminal search 200; narrative 190; origin 271; response 29 normalising 189 – 92 normality, environment dependence 192 normative language, employee usage 73 North American imaginaries 160 Norway, life (quality) 112

obedience: anticipatory obedience 29, 110, 227, 246; discipline 134; elders 134, 139; government 149, 196 – 7; parents 205; requirement 80, 211; rules/ regulations 61 – 9, 71 – 5, 78, 133, 199, 222, 250; social credit system 69 objections 213 observation data, diary 282 – 3 one-party system: imperative, support 131 – 2; preference 132 online purchases: continuation 107; recording 216; safety/privacy 115; traces 159 online traces, presence 183 opacity see rules; technology optimism: approach 160 – 1; comparison 170; display 117, 152; technology optimism 160 – 1 order, government (equivalence) 127 orthodoxy 283 – 6; manifestation 8 Orwell, George 211, 225 othering 194 – 203; narratives 91; surveillance targets 10, 179, 194 – 203, 211 Palmer, David 204 parental protection, government (equivalence) 135 – 49 parents: content, hiding 118 – 23; freedom, perception 194; persuasion 148; questioning, avoidance 120 participant imaginaries 152; shaping 267 ‘Party-speak,’ ignoring 204 passwords, change 229 past humiliations see humiliations patriotic narrative 88 patriotism, detriments 135 PayPal, personal data (leakage) 27 pejorative 7, 90, 174, 272; focus 19 Peking University (PKU), freedom 223 people, government (positive impact) 140 People’s Bank of China 31, 53; credit reference centre, establishment 44 – 5; credit reporting establishment 47; model city selection 46 People’s Republic of China collectivised property 18;

314 Index

anniversary 93, 143, 223; founding 89, 93, 127 people to people interaction 142 performance, monitoring 229 – 30 personal archives system see dang’an personal credit score, decision 172 personal data: app collection 159; attractiveness 196 personal exposure: concerns 268; coping 179; denial 198; dissociation 211; ignoring 188; minimisation 8, 213 personal information, government collection 145 Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) 28, 30, 269 Personal Information Security Specification (2018) 30 personal power, value 134 personal privacy 263; impact, absence 204; sense, growth 96 personal registers see dang’an personal testing 241 personal thoughts, learned discourse (tension) 132 phone: number, knowledge 188; scams 215 – 16; see also smartphone physical surveillance 22 picture, broadcasting (dissuasion) 113 piety, importance 134 ‘Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System’ 45 plans, obeying 78 platforms, creation 214 police: Clouds 51; observations 181; punishment experience, absence 65; robots, emotion identification 163; station, camera platforms (observation) 223 political control 225 – 6; awareness 214; social credit system usage 173; surveillance usage 27 – 8; tightness 2 political engagement, risk factor 197 – 8 political goals, social credit system (impact) 225 political interests 197, 198 political issues, observation (need) 255 political parties, fight 252 political posts, rarity 170 political question, asking 262 political speak 10, 265 political stability, appreciation 128

political terrain, exploration 250 – 4 politicians, privacy (protection) 197 politics: avoidance 96, 256 – 8; interest, absence 257 – 8; interviewing 247 – 54 pollution, factories (impact) 74 polycontextual analyses, conducting 273 polycontextual analytical lens 283 polycontextual approach, direct implication 4 polycontextualisation 3 – 4 polycontextual lens 4, 6 polycontextual narratives 11 polycontextual research 3 – 4 polycontextual surveillance imaginaries 267, 273 polycontextual thinking 4 population: collectivist label 105; level, moral quality narrative function 73; movements, monitoring 52; national population, study 81; needs, ensuring 132 – 3; paternalistic caretakers 137; politics detachment 203; Western people, comparison 86 pornography, watching (government allowance) 110 positive content, posting 117 positive energy, posting 48 positivity, display (need) 116 – 18 posting: caution 116; problems 119 poverty, escape 97, 253; technology, usage 168 – 9 power: imbalance 27 – 8; increase 255; social media 142 powerlessness, feelings 210 pride: dialectics 85 – 100; discussion 132, 134; expression 9, 84; pioneering technology 167 privacy: absence 199, 209, 211; American concern 129; apathy 29 – 30, 107, 208; apathy/ resignation 107; attention 135; awareness 220 – 1; awareness/advocacy, growth 30 – 1; awareness, display 110; catastrophe 26; CCTV, impact 209; cessation 209; chilling effects 29 – 30; Chinese scholarship 17 – 18; concern 207; concern, absence 96, 107; considerations, ignoring 205; convenience, contrast 155 – 7;

Index  315

damage 189; defining 109 – 11, 115, 118; desire, suspiciousness 114 – 16; efficiency, balance 201; exposure, concern 220 – 1; face, conflation 232 – 3; face saving, relationship 111 – 14; global, unimportance 96; government restrictions 145; imaginaries 103 – 11; importance 210 – 11; information, relationship 106, 114; intrusions, feelings 242 – 3; issues, ignoring 156; loss 217 – 21; loss, awareness 214; loss, dislike 187; need 113; nonexposure, equivalence 113; pejorative view 174; people, concerns 28 – 9; perceptions 28 – 32; possibility 228; presence 17 – 21; priority, absence 96, 166; proactive exposure 220; protection 197; protection, impossibility 210 – 11, 215; public opinion/ regulations, evolution 268 – 9; purchase information 208; regulations, noncompliance 30; risks/gains, balance 107; sacrifice 96; security, trade-off 201; shameful information, hiding 103; shameful things 114 – 16; social responsibility, connection 111 – 18; surveillance, relationship 17; TikTok, following (problem) 119; value 105, 144, 220, 228; viewpoints 104 – 9; violation 234; Weibo policies 182; Western scholarship, privacy 19 – 21; word cloud 119; worry, absence 204 Privacy Is Power (Veliz) 27 private behaviors, negative consequences (absence) 110 private companies, data abuse (prevention) 145 private financial information, components 114 private property, respect 128 products, improvement 193 profiling 25; algorithmic profiling 25; Big Data profiling 24 – 5; governance 25; stereotyping social group reliance 27

progress, economic development (connection) 95 – 8 propaganda 10, 261; campaigns 2; impact 273; interiorisation 265; official propaganda 129; perception 148, 256, 261; positive energy, connection 48; theme, reference 131; traces 260 – 1; understanding 92 protection, government (equivalence) 127 public behaviours: improvement 199; privacy, absence 109 public interest, respect 73 public opinion: evolution 268 – 9; public policies, alignment 147; reading, ease 42 public order/discipline (perspective) 66 public order, violation (perspective) 66 public regulations, evolution 268 – 9 public rules, violation (fines) 99 – 100 public safety: civilisation, connection 99 – 100; dream 92; harm 65; importance 189; perception 9, 85 public security: cameras, purpose 115 – 16; purpose 199 public service 250 punishments 63 – 72, 236 – 7; acceptance 61, 64, 243; application, fluctuation 69 – 72; appraisals 79; criteria, worry 68 – 9; experience, absence 65; impact 49 – 50; market-based punishment 50; narrative 63 – 8; protection 237; social shaming, moral aspect 78; tools 72 – 80; word cloud 63; see also blacklists purchase: information 208; openness 184; technology convenience 158 Qian Xuesen 43 Qing period 17 Qing Empress Dowager 87 Qinghai, travels 282 Qinhai, trip 5 Qlik Sense 25 QQ albums 221; behavior 121; usage 106 – 7; work usage 192 QR scan, usage 168 quantitative scoring 45 rationalisation 188 – 91 reading app, usage 159

316 Index

reciprocal surveillance 23 recognition: desire 94 – 5; international moral recognition, longing 94 – 5 recommendations: algorithmic 238, 269; ease 159; making 228; product, push 158; real-time, usage 29; receiving, convenience 156; sending 107; Taobao, perception 137, 216; targeted, usage 27 red flag education 134 redlists (hong mingdan): moral and political 48; ‘Moral Models & Good Political Ideology’ (Tibet) 48; pandemic retooling 52; provinces, fragmentation 50; rewards 46; role models 48; ‘Tianjin Good Man’ 48; ‘Tianjin Ideological and Moral Model’ 48; pandemic retooling 52 – 3 red tourism 87 reframing 192 – 4 regime imaginaries 90 registers: company 50; household (hukou) 40 – 1; personal 40 – 1; security 71 regulations: authorities application 71; constraint 222; evolution 268 – 9; impact 18; importance 149; industry, focus 48; obeying 78; privacy, noncompliance 30; public, evolution 268 – 9 Remembrance of Earth’s Past (Liu Cixin) 159 repression: social credit system usage 173; surveillance, usage 27 – 8 reputation (xinyu) 42; collateral damage 161; dang’an 50; in-group 114; law/right 18, 140; measurement 205; nudge 50; protect 195 research: data analysis 283 – 6; participants, breakdown 277; polycontextual 3 – 4 resentment 10, 173, 213, 214 respectability: maintenance 9; moral/ social, maintenance 100, 104; social 111 – 18; social, ensuring 111 restrictions, acceptance 133, 143 revolution, call (absence) 197 rewards: access 249; appraisals 79; evocation 235; joint, and sanctions system 46 – 8; range 49 – 50; recording 40; systems, sanctions systems (combination)

47 – 8; usage 43, 49 – 50; see also redlists risk acceptance 258 Robodebt debacle (Australia) 27 robots, perception 159 Rocca, Jean-Louis 172 Roger, Luc 26 Roussillat, Sébastien 64, 114 ‘rule by law’ paradigm 43 Rule, James 22 rules 63 – 72; acceptance 65; acceptance, relationship 68; application, fluctuation 69 – 72; breaking, inevitability 71; breaking, problem (China) 65; clarity, absence 69; compliance, economic development/progress (connection) 80; disobeying 199; enforcement 199; enforcement, problem 71; examples 65 – 6; ignoring 80; justification 74 – 6; moral quality, equivalence 72; narrative 63 – 8, 133 – 4, 199; narrative, example 64; obeying 222; opacity 9, 68 – 9, 82; perspective 66 – 8; social credit system, usage 74; technology-enforced rules, civilising power 80 – 2; tools 72 – 80; violation 80; violation, absence (impact) 79; violation, perspectives (examples) 65 – 8, 75; word cloud 63 rules, obeying: example 66; perspective 66; strictness 71 rural areas, camera presence (lower levels) 165 sad news, hiding 120 Safe Cities, usage 51 safety: CCTV, equivalence 80; considerations, ignoring 205; increase 99; protection, cameras (usage) 110 sales (targeting/increase), technology (usage) 144 sanctions systems, rewards systems (combination) 47 – 8 saving, excess 259 – 60 saving face 104, 111; shameful information, concealment 9 saviour: narrative, technology (relationship) 153; symbolic, role 269

Index  317

schools 22, 24; building 76; cameras, installation/ presence 110, 229 – 30, 232 – 3; emotion-recognition cameras, usage 164; enrolment issues 49; face recognition, nonusage (belief) 29; history, teaching 86; rules, obeyance 134 scientific planning 146 scoring 48 – 9; algorithmic 232; citizen, case studies 25; credit card 256; function 2; municipal 51; quantitative 45; social 44 – 5; social credit 235 – 6; social credit system, objectivity (challenge) 68 – 69; system, support 223 – 4; see also social credit scores searches, traces (presence) 157 second-order coding 285 – 6 secrecy 223 – 4; combatting 23, 161; cultivation 163 – 4; hiding/ concealing 17/8, 10, 104 – 23, 164, 174, 197, 219 – 20, 232, 234, 241; idea 223 – 4; impact 50; issues 153; replacement, knowledge (usage) 164; state, evocation/invocation 27, 28; suppression, technology (usage) 161 – 4; uprooting 10, 153, 174 security: convenience, trade-off 215; facial recognition technology, association 160; privacy, trade-off 201; register 71 self-behaviour, knowledge 73 self-censorship 246, 284; boundaries, probing 251; discussion 10; engagement 31; example 254 – 63; explicit occurrence 262; manifestation 8; marking 283; result 29; verbal/non-verbal forms 247 self-concept, weakness 134 self-control, weakness 205 self, data consequences (assessment) 205 – 6 self-discipline, vector 81 self-restraint, result 29 self-restriction, performance problems 73 self-sacrifice 81 Sensetime, usage 2 sensitive: attitudes toward China 88; avoidance 110; CPC 169;

censorship 170; ethics 247; foreign news 227; interviewing 247 – 8; political 129, 170; purchases 184, 219, 222; research 265; self-censorship 252, 263, 265; social security number 26; Tiananmen 222 service, improvement 193 Sesame Credit (zhima xinyong) 32, 47, 49, 172 – 173 sex, privacy 115 Sewell, Graham 194, 272 Shaanxi 5; travels 282 shame 111 – 12; dialectics 85 – 100; national, avoidance 84 shameful information, concealment/ hiding 9, 103 shameful information/feelings, exposure (control) 111 shaming: social 50; social, support 78; tool 77 – 80 Shanghai, research interviews 5 sharing, preference 135 Sharp Eyes, usage 51 Sichuan, trip 5 silence, result 29 Singapore, economy (comparison) 94 singled out, target 8, 10, 240 – 2 Skynet, usage 51 Skype, usage 229 small potato see ‘I am a small potato’ “small potatoes” 194 – 5, 253; idea, support 196 smart gates, installation 44 smartphone: absence, problem 155; application 192; geospatial tracking 52; payment, camera observation 189; payment usage 156, 207; shutdown 195; usefulness 153 Snapchat, impressions (management) 116 Snowden, Edward 25, 29 social affairs, involvement 204 social behaviour 241 social control techniques 2 Social Credit Law Working Group, NDRC establishment 53 social credit scores: 2014 – 2020 Chinese government plan 2; behavior, attribution 42; blacklists, change behaviours 280; computation 68; drinking, watching video games 172; financial activity,

318 Index

driving behaviour 170; interview questions 278 social credit systems (SCS) 2, 9, 30 – 31, 45 – 50; absence 184; advances/ limitations 50 – 2; application 270; change 225; commercial 47; criticism 231; data, presence 206; development 185; differences 231; discussion 211, 232; evaluation 259; fantasy 185; history 40; idea 199; impact 78, 172; implementation 220, 225; knowledge 200, 262 – 3; minimising 184 – 7; municipal 46 – 7; negative side 199; occurrence 146; operation, knowledge (absence) 172; perception 227, 259; political goals 224; political implications, consideration 187; questions 129, 262; replacement 239; research 199; research, scoring 48 – 9; scoring, objectivity (challenge) 68 – 69; usage 74, 187; usage, argument 185 – 6; WeChat, link (ignorance) 173; Weibo, sensitive articles 283 social deterrence 45 social discrimination, increase 27 social efficiency, perspective 78 social events 232 social face, privacy (equivalence) 113 social governance: narrative 74; objective 42; paradigm 43; philosophy 9, 40, 53; requirement 42; teleological perspective 43 social governance (21st century) 41 – 3; bottom-up/top-down approaches 42 – 4 social harmony 43 social judgement 7, 240; concern 104; escape 111, 113; fear 77; importance 62; see also judgement social media 239 – 40; accounts 44; accounts, closure/deletion 180; activity 246; activity, monitoring 25; applications, integration 2; benefits/drawbacks 110; censorship 241; Chinese social media, monitoring 141 – 2; disagreements 141; foreign social

media, access/usage 207, 229; handles/passwords, providing (invasiveness) 110 – 11; hybrid social media 103; information asymmetry characteristic 23; interactions 20; internal social media 51; likes 239 – 40; messages 48; minimising 182 – 4; personal information 31; platforms, usage 2, 19; political opinion expression 202; posting/ posts 1, 22, 185, 188; profiles, Department of Homeland Security datamining 24; profiles, false information 29; relationship 158; spy tool 191; surveillance, discussion 247; surveillance infrastructure 7; transparency 23; unfriending 206 social moral condemnation 45 social narrative 87 social norms, evolution 134 social regulations, differences 133 – 4 social requirements 237 social respectability 100, 104, 111 – 18 social responsibility, privacy (relationship) 111 – 18 social scoring 44 – 5 social shaming 50; moral aspect 78; support 78 social sorting 51 social surveillance 22 social system, advantages (perspective) 67 social taxes, payment 171 society: cameras, contributions 166; consumption, pattern 209; datafication 28; development, desire 148; function 219; harm 202; regulations, need 162 – 3; technology, usefulness 166 “so far, it has not harmed me” 203 – 7 “so far so good” 206 – 7 Solove, Daniel 20, 196 sorting 25; algorithmic 20; citizen 44 – 5; garbage, regulations 237; social 51 sousveillance 22 South Korea, economy (comparison) 94 spiritual civilisation (jingshen wenming) 43; official discourse 73 stability, helping 260 state media, narratives 173

Index  319

state secrecy, evocation/invocation 28, 269 state surveillance 24 – 5 storage capacities 183 strangers, watching (discomfort) 181 street crossings, picture (display) 243 Strittmatter, Kai 87, 130, 246, 258 students: emotional states, capture 164; teachers, equality (absence) 236 subway fare-dodger, criminal (naming) 190 suffering, bearing 98 supervisors, content (hiding) 118 – 23 Supreme People’s Court, blacklists 47 – 8 surveillance 21 – 5, 218; acceptance 234 – 5; acceptance of invasive 129; ambivalence 189; cameras, government investment (reason) 139; care, equivalence 135 – 49; commercial surveillance 23 – 4; continuum 26 – 8; dataveillance 22; digital 1 – 8; discursive framing, tension 8; dissociation, mental tactics 179, 180; emotional reactions, narratives (disconnect) 242 – 5; equality breach 235 – 6; exposure 191; exposure (limitation), behaviors (impact) 227 – 9; generalised 10, 143, 213, 228 – 42, 245; imaginaries 3, 6, 84, 100, 103, 127; imaginaries, core narratives 7; imaginaries, moral narratives (cohesiveness) 272; imaginaries, narratives (strength) 268; imaginaries, situating 174; imaginaries, strength (variation) 273; individualised 213, 241, 245; inefficiency 229 – 30; inhuman characteristic 232 – 5; justification 131 – 2; labelling 231 – 2; lateral 22; minimising/ ignoring/normalising/reframing 180 – 94; othering, targets 10, 179, 194 – 203, 211; perceptions 28 – 32; personal exposure, socio-demographics 263 – 5; physical 22; privacy, relationship 17; public acceptance 29; reciprocal 23; refusal 244; social 22; social media, discussion 247; sousveillance 22; state 24 – 5; studies, implications 271 – 3;

targets 8, 201, 242; targets, othering 194 – 203; technology, approval rates 31, 268; technology-enabled surveillance 99 – 100; technology, perceptions (analysis) 40 suspicion, absence 231 suzhi see moral quality symbolic permission 249 – 50 systemic analyses, conducting 273 systems theory 43 Taishan, blacklisted people 50; see also blacklists Taiwan: economy, comparison 94; protestors, problems (perception) 142; topic/word, ban 191, 204 Taobao see Alibaba Taoism, concealment 18; integrity 79, 81; philosophy 17; reading 67; rules 134 Tao Te Ching (Laozi) 67, 105 targets 8, 201, 242 teacher, respect 134 teaching, recording 248 technical knowledge 186 technology: advantages 26; avoidance 208; Chinese, comparison 167; convenience 153 – 7; daily use 156; digital, usage 152 – 3; direction 255; disadvantages, perception 166; discussion 84; efficiency 155; enslavement capacity 238; excess, problem 161; exportation 2; facial recognition, usage 31, 44; framing 43, 208, 214 – 15; impact 209; importance 152, 166 – 9; instrumentalisation 40; interference 238; invasive, usage 144; invasive surveillance, acceptance 129; knowledge 110; love 157 – 60; moral function 161 – 6; moral roles, consolidation 270; narratives 127; narratives, socio-demographics 173 – 4; opacity 169 – 73, 184; optimism 160 – 1; perceptions, analysis 40; positive response 157; poverty escape 169; problems 169 – 73; promise 164, 166; role 269; secrecy tool 161 – 4; surveillance,

320 Index

approval rates 31, 268; usage 168 – 9, 184, 192, 208, 232, 270; usefulness 166, 168; viewpoint 75, 116; word cloud 162; work-life boundary management challenges 278 technology-enabled surveillance 99 – 100 technology-enforced rules, civilising power 80 – 2 techno-positivism 43 Tencent 197; customers 215; data sale 214; government control 222 – 3; information 215; partnerships 217; trust 259; trust, extent 207; usage 195 terrorist attacks 261 theory X 75 theory Y 75 thinking emotionally, polycontextual research 4 ‘Three Beliefs Crises’ 87 Tiananmen Square: demonstrations 42; movement 128; protests, repression 87; protests, support 90; student demonstrations, censorship/repression 223; topic/phrase, ban 191, 204 tianxia 94 Tianmao, knowledge 204 Tibet, ‘/ Ts’ (ban) 191; background check 224; redlists 48; sample 277 TikTok (Douyin): blacklisted individuals’ identification 50; entertainment 2, 199, 214; interview question 245, 271; magical place 158; popularity 168; Positive Energy videos 117; privacy 116; WeChat 147, 158 time, saving 154 – 5 togetherness, preference 135 top-down database centralisation 8, 53 traces: concern 190 – 1; impact 106 – 7; presence 157, 183 traffic education, need 72 transparency 69; absence 231; backfiring 23; social media transparency 23 travel: enjoyment 73; restriction, decrease 133 trophy connection 90 Trump, Donald (social media impact) 94, 128, 146, 216

trust-breaking acts, punishment 45 trust, narrative 196 Twitter, usage 104, 229 United Kingdom: Data Justice Lab 25; geo-demographic segmentation 25; interviews 249; police 231; preventive policing 199; privacy 28 – 31; surveillance imaginaries 109 United Nations 96 United States: citizens, watching 191; gun control, absence 163; privacy 28 – 31; surveillance imaginaries 109 unpleasant feelings 214 – 26, 267 Urumqi, smart gates (installation) 44 Uyghur: attacks, fear 92; camps 204; citizens, personal/family files 44; propaganda 92, 261; touristic village, reaching 71 Van Dijck, José 23 Veliz, Carissa 27 victimisation narrative 89 videos, watching 259 – 60 vigilantia 22 violence, information posting (impossibility) 222 virtual private network (VPN): authority knowledge 186; example 64 – 5; explanation 240; fines 141, 170; holiday blocking 170; impact 221 – 3; obtaining 229; official ban 170 – 1; punishment, disapproval 227; presence 227; usage 186, 198, 202, 206, 218, 239; user, fine 254 – 5; worry 203 visibility, internet (impact) 220 visual language, usage 244 voice, raising 255 Wang Limin 18 Wang, Xinhuan 64 Wang, Zheng 86, 87, 88, 90, 97, 143, 256 Warring States 17 war lords, presence 131 watching history, cleaning 259 – 60 websites, access restrictions 141 WeChat (Weixin): advantages/ disadvantages 156; Apple discussion 217; bill, sharing

Index  321

196; by-products 220; candidate profiles, checking 118; chat usage 238; consideration 2; credit, computation 244; credit systems 47; data provision 201; discussion 252; entertainment 158; examination 217; fake identity, supply 116; groups 279; importance 158; like/dislike 208; low-income people usage 168; messages 278; messages/ text, deletion 183; moments 279; Morality and Information Safety Committee recommendations 221; news, deletion 232; openness, selectivity 121; payment history 217 – 18; politeness 121; positive effect 116; privacy level, perception 109; replacement 221; scandal, avoidance 145; social credit system, link (ignorance) 173; spending knowledge 211; TikTok 147, 158; usage 155, 156; video, avoidance 229; work groups, dislike 192 WeChat Pay: convenience 168; data 193; data, collection 205; usage 107, 168 WeChat, posting: avoidance 113; content, concern (absence) 98; content, control 223; impact 262 Weibo: criticism, impact 182; data provision 201; discussion 252; friends, honesty (display) 121; honesty, display 121 – 2; Key Opinion Leader (KOL), problems 118; name, change 122; posts, personal characteristic 256; privacy policies 182; private/ personal information, sharing 183; pseudonym, usage (real name registration requirement) 182; responsibility 232; social media 104 Weipinghue, usage 106 Wenhua dageming (Great Cultural Revolution), experience 222 West: China, surpassing 167 – 8; human rights attacks 89, 133; imperialism 6; individuals,

focus 105; media, task 257; paranoia 192; privacy, valuation 105; privacy, worry (absence) 204; problems, camera absence (correlation) 163; techno-orientalism 6 Western cybernetics 43 Western democracy, alternative 100 Western foreigners, appreciation/ resentment 89 – 91 Western language, PIPL co-optation 269 Western liberal democracies, social control techniques 2 Western scholarship, privacy 19 – 21 Western world, influences 142 WhatsApp: surveillance, evasion 51; usage, question 229 Winiger, Fabian 204 workplace: camera presence, perception 229 – 30, 233 – 4, 237, 242, 244; friendship, problem 23; gaffes 103; screenshots 233; social network 19 work posts, problems 119 world: China status, technology (usage) 166 – 9; improvement, government (attempt) 141 Xiao, Gongqin 88 Xi era discourse 239 Xi, Jinping 6, 42, 79, 88, 98, 117, 128, 137, 147, 194, 223, 227, 253; constitution, change 227; discourse 147; rhetoric 88; uncle Xi (moniker) 137 Xinjiang (Province): cameras, presence 70; deportation 92; ID, usage 187; IJOP 51; political control/ repression tool 27 – 8; ruins 136; smart gates, installation 44; travels 92, 282; trip 5; Uyghur camps 204 Yang, Lixin 18 YouTube: access 222; usage, desire 143 Zhang, Chenchen 31, 42, 62, 81, 271, 273 Zuboff, Shoshana 24, 208 Zuckerberg, Mark 23